


Falling

by kally77



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:37:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kally77/pseuds/kally77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After The Harsh Light of Day, Angel loses his soul and Buffy finds an unexpected ally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

He came to me the night after the funerals. It was a dark night, moonless, cold. Lifeless. Or maybe I just remember it that way because that was how I felt. I had felt just as frozen, standing by their graves.

Within three days before that night, I lost everything. Everyone. 

I’ve always known I’ll die young, I’ve known it since I first learned what a Slayer is. What I am. What no one ever told me was that the people around me would die too. They had been hurt before, there had even been close calls – there had been Jenny Calendar – but until it began, I had believed I’d always save them and the day. I don’t believe it anymore. I can’t.

I sent Mom away. She fought me on it, but in the end, I didn’t give her much of a choice. I don’t know where she went, it’s better this way. I asked Xander to go with her to protect her, but I think he understood. I sent him away for his own safety. He didn’t protest. He only asked to stay until the funerals. He’s the one who found Willow. 

It started with the report on the news that a residential building was burning. I was home for the weekend. After the Parker fiasco, I needed to be off campus for a little while. Mom called me to watch the afternoon newsflash. The live, wide angle shot, taken from a helicopter, left no place for doubt. I ran to Giles’ place. The flames and fire truck when I arrived there were the same I had seen on TV. Now, though, there was also an emergency vehicle. And a body bag, as black as the scorched walls of the townhouse.

I heard two words – neck trauma – and I sicked up. 

It was just the beginning, though. Within hours, Oz’s van was found. He was in the back. Willow never got to know about it. Small mercies. Both her parents’ home and the dorm were torched. She was dead before the fires started.

The taste of ashes was still on my tongue, when he knocked on the door. My eyes were still burning, tearing up from the acrid smoke. I opened, a stake in hand, ready to send Spike back to the hell he came from for what he had done. I had figured it out, you see. I sent Oz to L.A. with the Amara ring. Spike caught up with him, got the ring back, and returned for revenge, using the ring to do it all during daylight.

Except…

Except when I opened the door, his left eye was swollen shut, and the shaking hand that pulled a cigarette from his lips was blackened like only the sun will burn vampire skin. And before I could move or say a thing or even blink, he said three words that sank under my skin better than a knife, better than fangs.

“Angelus is back.”

I couldn’t not believe him.

***

I’d rather have sent the bastard to hell myself, maybe after a round or two of torture. He deserved as much, after what he had done to me. Hell, he deserved worse than anything I can dish out. I’d have needed to be every bit as much a sadist as he can be. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a spot of torture as much as any other vamp. But that kind of things takes patience to be done right. The kind of patience I don’t have. He reproached it to me often enough when I was nothing more than a fledgling.

No, I wanted him dead, and I wasn’t particular about how it happened. If I did it, fine. If she did, fine as well. Doubling our chances was all that mattered. I wanted to see his ashes beneath my feet. I wanted to know he’d never lay a hand on me, not ever again. Everything else was irrelevant. And judging by the Slayer’s eyes, as haunted by pain as they were by grief, I had a feeling she wouldn’t be too hard to convince.

“How do you know he’s…back?”

Each of her words was heavy with blood and tears. They could have been sweet, a few days earlier, but now the flavor in the air was only bitter.

I shrugged, and regretted the movement immediately. I had to struggle to keep the pain off my face and voice. It was bad enough that I couldn’t hide my slowly healing eye and burned hand. I didn’t need her to wonder what else Angelus had done to me. And I didn’t need or want to think about it either.

“Seen him in action, didn’t I?” I tried to smirk, but I had a feeling I was grimacing more than anything else. “Got there in time to see him play with his friends. Quite a show, that. Vintage Angelus, straight from the old days, nothing like the batshit crazy act he played in Sunnydale.”

She wasn’t getting it, I could see as much right away. Confusion was written all over her face. Lucky her.

“If he’s the one who killed Giles and Willow,” she snapped, “I don’t see how that makes him any different—.”

“Because this time he’s not trying to send everyone to hell, including himself. He’s making sure no one shoves a soul back into him. So he can have his fun for as long as he wants.”

I brought what was left of my cigarette to my lips and took in a long drag that burned my throat with the comfort of habit. As I did, I considered the Slayer in front of me, just past the threshold. She still had a stake in her hand, though she seemed to have forgotten it. Confused, hurt, angry, depressed, but I couldn’t see or smell any guilt on her. Didn’t she get it?

“So.” I exhaled smoke toward her face and she flinched. “Are you going to help me fix your mess, or just wait for him to come at you?”

“Fix my mess?” She sounded almost indignant. “I haven’t seen him in months! I didn’t—”

“You sent him my ring. You gave him the sun after centuries of darkness.”

Understanding rose in her eyes, along with tears. My tone only hardened, sharpened, and I lashed out again, annoyed that she wasn’t showing herself any stronger. My accusations were like a whip slashing the air between us.

“Of course you did this. And now you and I are going to make it right, once and for all.”

***

I had known before talking to Spike that Giles and Willow had died because of me, because of their involvement in my fight. But that had been their choice, and I could distance myself from it. They had died because of me, yes, but my guilt was manageable.

When he told me—God, even now it’s tearing me apart. When he told me I was responsible in a more direct way than what I had believed so far, that I had caused Angel to lose his soul, again, with another bad decision…I could have died right there. My heart tightened and it was hard to breathe and Spike’s words were buzzing in my ears and the world was black behind a blurry curtain of tears.

I let go of my stake. I didn’t hear it fall. I fumbled and grabbed the door for support, but it still wasn’t enough. Everything was wavering, my knees were folding in beneath me, and I felt like I was going to fall. I lowered myself to the floor and just sat there, just past the threshold, and tried to get my mind and body under control again. In my head, Angelus was laughing and his laughter was shards of ice and blades of steel.

Something hitting my knee startled me and I jerked, the back of my head hitting the door behind me. It happened again. I blinked, and my vision readjusted to what was in the floor in front of me—two small rocks. A third one hit my arm and this time I glanced up at Spike. He was still standing on the doorstep, head tilted to one side as he looked down at me. He had another couple of rocks in his hands and he looked like he was pondering throwing them at me as well. For a few seconds I wondered what that was about, and then I realized he couldn’t put a foot inside, not unless I invited him in, and I had no intention to do that.

“Back to the world, yet?”

I would have expected him to mock me, or insult me, and shove in my face that I had just broken down in front of him. He’s a fighter. He looks for weaknesses, and when he finds them, he exploits them.

But he didn’t exploit this one. He kept quiet as I pull myself up, and waited until I had wiped away my tears to say: “So, you ready to help me dust him, now?”

I was.

***

We never really put it into words. She agreed to help me put him down, and that was it. There were no promises on my part not to kill anyone while we worked together, no promises on hers not to dust me when it was all over. It was all about Angelus.

But then, it has always been all about Angelus.

We made a round together, that first night. Hit the bars in town, the clubs, asked anyone who would listen if they had seen Angelus, and convinced those who weren’t listening to listen anyway. I did the arm-twisting, she did the questioning. Teamwork at its best. Except that we didn’t get anything. No one had seen him, no one had any clue of where he might be. Only when we ran out of options did we turn toward the obvious – the mansion on Crawford street.

She smelled like murder, on our way there. I guess she’s just as fond of her memories of the damn place as I am. 

There was no car in sight, but I knew, as soon as we got there, that this was it. I could smell the blood before we opened the front door. I caught her eye when she put her hand on the door handle, and nodded. A muscle twitched in her jaw, and she nodded back. She pulled her hand away, grabbed a stake, and opened the door with her left hand. We walked in together.

If either of us had had any doubt at that moment that Angelus was back, what we found would have given us the proof we needed. It was just pure vintage Angelus, the same kind of stunt I had heard of, as a fledgling, and witnessed just a couple of times, too. It was more than simply killing a few people; it was another step into breaking the Slayer’s mind.

She had stopped right past the threshold, eyes wide and hand covering her mouth. I kept on, and looked around. The display was having its desired effect, no doubt there, but that couldn’t be it. Even if he was fucking with her head, there had to be a message beyond that. I found it, pinned to one of the bodies with a slim knife. I almost expected the letter to be written in blood, there certainly was enough around and on the bodies for that, but no, it was written in black ink, the lines clear, precise, even elegant on the heavy cream-colored paper. He hadn’t just grabbed the first piece of paper he had found. He had gotten fine stationery. Oh, yes, it was a game for him, and it was only the beginning.

***

Blood was everywhere, and at first that was all I saw.

It was splattered on the walls and fireplace, small drops that rose in large sprays, like impressionist flowers, all of them crimson. A garden of death.

It was on the floor, large pools, so dark they seemed black. It was still fresh, and when Spike walked in it, it made a sickening squishing noise beneath his shoes. I wanted to shout at him to get out of the blood, to just stop, but my throat was too dry to let out any sound. All I could do was watch the imprints he left as he came back toward me.

It was on them. All seven of them. It was on the middle-aged man in tweed, propped on a sofa, glasses in his right hand and a rose in the left. It was also all over the red-haired girl sitting next to him, an arm around the boy next to her. He had a guitar pick on a leather string around his neck. They both held a rose. A dark haired boy was sitting on the floor at their feet, leaning back against the sofa. He was wearing a hard hat. Just by his side, a blonde girl was dressed in nothing more than a silk nightgown. Her cheek rested against his shoulder. A foot away from them, in an armchair, legs crossed, an older woman held a doll on her lap. She was blonde too, and so was the girl nailed in front of the fireplace, her body held up by stakes. Her arms were spread out on each side of her, her head tilted to one side. All she wore was a golden cross.

It’s only when I saw her – when I recognized myself in her – that it started to make sense. That I understood who they were all supposed to be.

“He’s going to kill us all.”

I didn’t realize I had spoken aloud until Spike answered. I had to make a conscious effort to tear my eyes away from the scene to look at him. 

“No. He’ll try. Doesn’t mean he will.”

He was just by my side, and he was holding a piece of paper. There was blood on it too. I tried to take it from him, but I was too slow. He pulled it away, and before I could try to get it again, he took out his lighter and set the paper on fire. That small flame melted the ice in my bones in a flash, and I could think and move again.

“What are you doing? Is that from him? What does it say?”

Whatever was left of the paper fell to the ground, and in seconds it was ashes.

“It doesn’t say anything more than his little display. Let’s get out of here.”

“Wait.” I grabbed his arm. “He might still be here. We should—”

He pulled free and walked away, throwing over his shoulder: “He’s gone. Left town. Let’s get back to your place, grab whatever you need and we can follow.”

I caught up with him and grabbed his arm again. This time, he yanked himself free right away and glared at me. I had better not touch him again, his eyes warned me.

“How do you know he’s gone? How do you know where?”

“The letter.”

It was my turn to glare. “You just said there was nothing important in it!”

He shrugged and walked out of the mansion. I followed.

“So, I lied. Let’s get on with it.”

He never told me what was in that first letter. I stopped asking after I found the second one.

***

Two hours after we found Angelus’ messages, we were driving out of Sunnydale and north. The note had said that was the direction he would take, though not how far he would go. As it turned out, we didn’t have to go far before we picked up his trace.

I had to stop for gas in the next town. As soon as we got off the highway, we knew something was up. There were newscast vans all over the place, even more police cars, and despite the late hour there were people being interviewed on every street corner. 

“You think that’s him?”

That was the first thing she had said since we had left the mansion. She sat very rigidly in the car, keeping close to the door, and I had begun wondering if she was having second thoughts.

“Only one way to find out.”

After filling up the tank, I stopped at a crowded all-night dinner. The locals barely looked at us when we got in, all of them focused on the television set on the counter. We found a small table and sat down, and it wasn’t long before we got the whole story.

A child had been snatched off the street that morning. She had been found again by nightfall. The Slayer blanched when she heard the details. For me, they just confirmed that yes, this was Angelus’ work.

And then we saw him. Right there, on the television screen, affecting the sad features of a concerned citizen and lamenting the state of a society that left its youngest members to be butchered by savages.

The Slayer and I stood together. At the bottom of the screen, the words ‘Live from Main Street’ were flashing in red. He was just a block away.

***

“Wait.”

Spike didn’t seem to have heard me. I grabbed his arm, pulling him to a stop, and he hissed as he snatched it away again. Too late, I remembered the state of his hand, and realized that his arm had to be burned the same way.

“Don’t. Touch. Me.”

I raised my hands, palms out in an apologetic gesture. 

“Just stop and think for a second. He probably put that show in front of the cameras to draw me out here, but he can’t know I’m in town already. And he doesn’t know either that we’re working together. We have the advantage of surprise twice over.”

He pulled out his cigarettes and lit one, taking a deep drag and nodding before he answered.

“Keep going down the street, find the news crew that interviewed him. I bet he’s still close, enjoying his work.”

“What about you?”

His grin sent a cold shiver down my spine. I’ve never seen a rabid wolf, but I imagine they look like that, just before they bite.

“I’ll be there when you get him away from the crowd.”

Another exhalation of smoke, and he was gone. It wasn’t exactly what I had had in mind when I had stopped him. I’d much rather have come up with a real plan, rather than this “I’ll be there” that told me nothing. My throat was dry suddenly, and my heart was beating faster than I would have wished. I checked the stake in my jacket’s pocket, and the one up my sleeve. If there hadn’t been so many people around, I’d have taken it in my hand. I’d have felt better.

I found the journalist who had interviewed Angelus easily enough; the guy was thrusting his microphone into everybody’s face, including mine. I walked around with the rest of the crowd. A lot of people were holding vigil candles. A few held signs protesting everything from the incompetence of the police to the corruption of the mayor’s office or the anger of God over the killing of baby seals.

And then I saw him, just a few yards away. Actually, I think I felt his eyes on me before I saw him. He had a small smile, and he pursed his lips as though blowing me a kiss before turning on his heel and walking away toward a nearby side alley. He glanced back, once. The invitation couldn’t have been any clearer. I clenched my hand over the stake in my pocket and followed.

***

Small town. Not so many alleys branching off the main street lined with stores. The Slayer had been right when pointing out surprise was our biggest advantage, and so I took some height to see more without giving myself away too fast.

I hadn’t imagined they’d come to the roofs as well.

They were two buildings over, just far enough that I could see them trading blows but not hear what else they shared. Just close enough that I could see her get mad as he got under her skin. I cursed a blue streak as I climbed down my building then up theirs. I had told her I’d be there, a promise in intent if not in words, and instead I was nowhere near enough to help.

I missed the entire confrontation, though I heard the last of it when I was reaching the roof – the Slayer shouting, and Angelus laughing. All I saw of him was his back as he walked away from me, jumping to a lower roof. I looked around, expecting to see the Slayer’s mangled body, gold and blood on the tar. I didn’t. Instead, I saw her hands, bloodied fingers clinging to the edge of the roof as she dangled over three stories. I went to help her – and as soon as she saw me over the edge, she yelled at me.

“Get him! Don’t just stand there and get him!”

I ignored her. Angelus was gone. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her up to safety. As soon as I let go of her, she took a shot. I couldn’t avoid her fist.

“What the hell--”

“I told you to go after him! Now he’s gone!”

“You needed help.”

“Yeah, five minutes ago I did! Where were you?”

I had no answer to that. To this day, I still don’t.

***

Ever trusted someone with your life and been let down?

I have. I don’t recommend it.

The entire time I was up that roof, I had only one thing in mind. Angelus was going to die. I would kill him, or Spike would, or we would do it together. All that mattered was that Angelus would soon be dust. And I gave it a fair try, if I can say so myself. It was a good fight, at first, I got a few nice blows in. Drew blood. That only made him laugh. When he stopped laughing, he started telling me about how Oz had cried, before he had finished with him. How Willow had pleaded until her voice became rough and painful. How Giles had never made a sound, and how it had lasted that much longer for him because of it. How he would take special care of my mom when he found her. When, not if.

I lost it then, and just attacked, without thought or planning. Without remembering that Spike was supposed to be close, supposed to help. Without caring about stopping his feet and fists when they flew toward me. I took risks; I paid for it by falling off the roof. He laughed at me, standing over the edge, and stepped on my fingers where I was clinging to life.

“Next game in San Francisco. I always wondered what the Golden Gate Bridge would look like by daytime. See you soon, darling. And don’t delay too much, things could get even bloodier if you do.”

He was leaving. I was letting him leave. 

And so was Spike.

He was finally there. Too late. And when I shouted at him to get Angelus, he ignored me. 

I was so mad, I could have killed him. 

“This isn’t going to work. I’ll hunt him down on my own, and you can go to hell.”

I started going away, but before I had taken three steps he was right there by my side again.

“No.”

I ignored him all the way down to street level. And then it dawned on me that I had very little money, no way to go to San Francisco, and my travel bag was in his car. I stopped and gave him the hardest look I had in me.

“I don’t trust you. And I never will.”

He didn’t reply, just raised an eyebrow at me that said “So what?”

“But if you’re ever not there again when you’re supposed to be, I’ll stake you before I do anything else.”

He still didn’t answer, but he nodded, just once. We went back to the car. He drove until morning, then found a motel, got us two rooms, paid for them I’m not sure I want to know how. I lay down on that bed without looking too closely at the bedspread and spent my day replaying the entire evening in my mind. I couldn’t let Angelus get under my skin like that, it would only get me killed.

And I couldn’t rely on Spike for anything more than transportation, for the exact same reason.

***

When we arrived in San Francisco, Angelus had already been there for several hours. His handiwork was, again, all over the news.

“Are you sure it’s him?”

I didn’t bother answering. The Slayer knew it was him, as much as I did. Three cheerleaders had disappeared, at three different schools, within the space of three hours. All three were blonde with hazel eyes. All three had gone missing at a game, leaving only one pompom behind.

“How do we find him?”

I could have tried to get his scent from the schools, but it had been hours, and too many humans had traipsed over those grounds. Thing was, he wanted to be found. We just needed to figure out what clue he had left for us.

By midnight, we were there. But by midnight, it was too late.

We found them in a school gym. He had made two of the girls stand on chairs, with the last one on their shoulders. It could have just been a cheerleading thing. Except I don’t think cheerleaders usually put ropes around their necks.

When we arrived, all three were hung. Angelus wasn’t anywhere to be found, but he had left a note at their feet. I went and picked it up when the Slayer stopped walking. 

“Too late this time. I’ll give you a couple of days to cry your little Slayer heart out, and then we’ll try again, sweetheart.”

When I looked up again, she had come to the girls, and she was reaching out toward the closest one.

“Don’t touch her,” I warned.

“We can’t leave them here. We have to—” 

“We have to get out of here.”

She turned to me. She looked enraged, I thought she would stake me, right there and then. 

“I know you don’t give a damn about them, but you could at least pretend! It’s your fault they’re dead! If you had gotten after him on that roof, we wouldn’t… no, wait. If you hadn’t looked for that damn ring—”

“And if you hadn’t given it to him—” 

She hit me, right over the mouth. I tasted blood, as strong, as heady as anger. I struck back, and I wasn’t the only one bleeding anymore.

“Let’s get this straight right now, Slayer. You and I are here for one thing. Kill Angelus. If we spend our time deciding who’s most to blame, there’s going to be a lot more of dead girls on our way before we finally get to him. And if we’re still here when the cops get a clue, we’ll never get to him, and then who will stop him?”

I don’t know if I was getting to her. She still reeked of anger. But at least, she wasn’t hitting me anymore.

“You’re ready to get out of here?”

She didn’t answer, but she followed me out.

***

For a month and half, that’s how it went. We hunted. Angelus killed. He made elaborate displays for me to find, wrote me notes that, in his twisted mind, might have passed for polite correspondence. He still didn’t know Spike was with me. What he probably did know was how much his words and actions affected me. My stomach emptied too often when we found his ‘gifts’, so I took the habit to wait until we had come back from the hunt to eat.

I wasn’t the only one affected by his mind fuck. The entire country was following the path of this mad serial killer who seemed to be acting at random, leaving no one, nowhere safe. The police and the FBI were on edge, which didn’t make my job any easier.

Our job, I suppose I should say. 

Spike and I were still arguing. It’s hard to be a step too late, night after night, and not try to find someone to blame. I was blaming him for just about everything, just because there was no one else for me to blame. I yelled at him for driving too slow. For driving too fast. For stealing money for gas, food and motels. For not stealing enough for us to always have separate rooms. For the way he’d wake me up when my turn in the bed was up. For not waking me up at all whenever he decided I needed more sleep. For not being any better than I was at figuring out where Angelus would be going next, or what he would do.

He gave back as good as he got. From my hair to my clothes to how little I ate, he criticized everything about me. Jabs about how being a Slayer wasn’t helping me much, now, and how I hadn’t had a Slayer dream since we had left Sunnydale, only nightmares. He kept the reminders that I had sent the ring to Angel and caused him to lose his soul—again—for particularly stormy days.

As much as we shouted, though, we were still in the same car, every night at nightfall, hunting a madman. Some nights, neither of us said a word. Some nights, we argued non-stop. It came down to blows, a few times, but never anything bad, never enough that one of us still had marks by the next night.

Never, until we reached Kansas. I’ll always remember the name of the town; Lawrence. Always remember the smell of dust and lilac in the air, and how low the full moon was, just above the horizon, casting our shadows on the ground like oversized puppets. One more night when we had arrived too late. One more grotesquely set scene of blood and death. One more shouting argument. And then something new.

That was the first night since all this mess had started that Spike and I fought—really fought, no holds barred, his game face to the front and a stake in my hand. 

That was the first night, also, that when the dust settled, we weren’t glaring at each other. Instead, we were tearing each other’s clothes off.

That was the first night we slept in the same bed. Although sleeping didn’t happen right away.

***

I don’t know why that one night was different from the almost fifty nights before that. What Angelus left for us was certainly nothing new, and neither was the guilt and disgust in her scent, or the frustration at my fingertips.

She lashed out first, using words and a senseless accusation.

“I told you to drive faster.”

“Of course you did. You’re good at giving orders. Pretty much the only bloody thing you’re good at. Oh wait, you’re good at helping Angel lose his soul, too. A true champion.”

The guilt increased tenfold in her scent, as did the anger in her eyes, but she didn’t address the lost soul argument. She had long ago run out of retorts.

“It’s your fault they’re dead.” Her trembling hand was pointing at the bodies we had found. “If you had gone faster, we’d have arrived on time. I’m beginning to wonder if you even want to catch him.”

I snorted. “Yeah, being stuck with you in endless rides and cheap motels is my idea for a good time. And you’d have helped these poor sods so much more lying dead in a ditch.”

The slap took me by surprise.

“Don’t you dare!” she shouted. “A little respect for the dead isn’t—”

I slapped her back. She looked at me with wide, surprised eyes, as though we had never fought before.

“A little respect for me would be nice too, Slayer.”

“Respect? For a killer? You don’t even care about the people he kills. All you want is your petty little revenge—”

She was too close to truth for comfort, and her words were reawakening the not so old shame and pain.

“Like revenge isn’t what you’re after,” I cut in. “Don’t tell me you don’t dream of them still. I’m the one who has to listen to you cry out for them when you sleep. You’re a fighter, can’t you—”

It wasn’t a simple slap, this time. It was a punch, with all her strength, all her anger backing it. Dust rose around me when I was thrown down to the ground. If she wanted to play dirty, I was in. I lashed out with my foot. She evaded the kick, but when I jumped back on my feet, she wasn’t fast enough to avoid my fist.

She pulled out a stake. I shifted to game face. And then it started for good.

We were at it forever, or so it seems in my memories. We had fought since we had left Sunnydale, but never like this. Never with the clear intent, in each blow, to get to the final kill. 

Instead, it ended with a kiss. 

I’m not sure anymore who kissed whom first. We were rolling on the ground, and there was no way she could have mistaken my hard cock for anything else as it ground into her thigh or belly while we fought. Just like there was no way I could have mistaken the raw lust slowly taking over her scent for anything more usual from her. One moment, her stake was over my heart, my hands were ready to snap her neck. The next, our mouths were crushed together, fighting just as hard as we had done so far. I was still in game face, but she didn’t seem to care. She cut her tongue on my fangs, not sure if it was by design or accident, and all that was left of my sanity disappeared with the taste of her blood on my tongue. I wanted more of her – more blood, more kisses, more skin, more touching. More. As much as she had to give. 

I pulled at her shirt, and the buttons went flying. Her bra was a simple, no frills cotton thing, and it tore easily in my grip. Her breasts spilled into my hands and she gasped, pulling free from my mouth but not free of me. Her nipples were already hard nubs against my palms; I pinched them between thumbs and forefingers, making her moan and shake. Her eyes were so wide, her pupils dilated as though she were high. She pressed down against my cock and it was my turn to moan. If she kept it up, I wouldn’t last long enough to bury myself inside her – and there was no way I was going to let that chance pass me by.

With some difficulty, I slid a hand down to her jeans. I managed to undo the button before she clasped her hand over mine, stopping me.

“Not here,” she breathed.

A fleeting look toward the bodies explained what she meant. Can’t say I cared much, but she did, and if being a bit flexible was going to get me inside her knickers – inside her – I could adapt. In moments, we were back to the car; in minutes, I had found us a motel. We picked up right where we had stopped.

It wasn’t until many hours later that either of us remembered the note I had picked up from the scene, and by then all we could do was hurry up, knowing we were already too late.

***

His eyes were so intense, they seemed to see right through me, right through my soul. The entire time, he never closed them, never looked away. I drowned in blue, burned in gold, and felt more naked from his gaze than from my lack of clothing. He never said it in words, but I could hear it every time our eyes met, and it always made me look away. “Beautiful.” I could almost have believed him.

His mouth mapped every inch of me. Kissing, licking, biting, sucking. Lips, jaw, collarbone, neck, nipples, navel, thighs. When he pried my legs open, I tried to stop him, pull him back up to my mouth, but he laughed, the sound like thick syrup sliding over me and stilling me. “No one’s ever done this for you? I’ll make it really good, then.” And he did.

His fangs came out, sometimes. He kept slipping in and out of game face, unconsciously, I think. I felt the pressure against my skin a couple of times, but he never drew blood. I’m not sure what I’d have done if he had. I was sure, the entire time, that he wanted to taste me, but he didn’t ask. I didn’t offer.

His hands never left me. Sometimes they caressed – and sometimes they pinched. Sometimes they were barely there – and sometimes they held me tight enough to leave bruises. Palms cupping, fingertips tickling, knuckles playing me like a fine instrument. It would have been easy to lie beneath his hands and let him do it all, but he didn’t let me. “Touch me,” he repeated, over and over, and I was happy to oblige.

His body was cool under my hands and against mine, slowly warming as we rubbed against each other. Cool, and strong. Sure of himself, when I was sometimes fumbling. So sensitive that every touch seemed to draw a reaction from him. I can still hear him moan, and groan, and purr my name. He had never called me anything other than Slayer or one of his ridiculous nicknames before that night. 

His cock—oh God, his cock…

***

She didn’t wake until the early afternoon, but then, the sun had already been up when we had gone to sleep, both of us too exhausted for yet another round. The last thing that ran through my mind before I fell asleep was that, if that was what fucking a Slayer was like, it had been worth the wait.

I had been slowly drifting toward wakefulness when her heartbeat startled me. From the slow regularity of sleep, it suddenly jumped to a fast rhythm that, to me, was the rhythm of the hunt. That was what prey sounded like, when I cornered them, right before the kill. That was what she had sounded like, also, those few times when we had met before becoming reluctant allies. I sat up on the bed, half-certain that I’d find Angelus looming over us. Instead, all I saw was a glimpse of her arse as she ran to the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

I should have seen it coming, I guess. Made sense that in the light of day sleeping with a vamp wouldn’t seem like such a good idea to her little Slayer sensibilities. It’s not like I was all that proud of it myself. My rep was built on the number of Slayers I had killed, not on the number of orgasms I could give one in a night, and I wouldn’t go bragging about it any more than she would.

The water ran for a long while. When she came out, her skin was bright red against the faded white of the towel she was clutching around her. She looked anywhere but at me as she grabbed her travel bag and retreated back into the bathroom, locking it once more. I rolled my eyes at the door. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen – touched – tasted – every inch of her already. I grabbed my cigarettes and lit one, lounging on the bed with a hand behind my head, reliving the finest moments of the night. I wouldn’t brag about it, no, but that didn’t mean I would forget about it either. She had been a little hesitant at times, but what she lacked in experience she had made up for in sheer enthusiasm. It rated up there with the better fucks I’d had – and I, unlike her, am not lacking where experience is concerned. My cock was twitching, reawakened by the memories, and I wrapped my free hand around it, as loosely as she had held me, the first time, before I had covered her hand with mine and tightened it. She had learned fast.

After a few moments, the door creaked open again, and again, I saw little more than her back as she ran for the room’s door, barely uttering a “Going to find food” explanation before she disappeared. I sighed. I hoped she would get it out of her system fast, or our little road trip was going to be even more painful than it had been so far.

The thought of why we were on the road reminded me of the piece of paper I had picked up from the scene the previous night before we had gotten into it. Sliding off the bed, I searched my pockets until I found the crumbled note.

_I’m starting to miss seeing you, baby. You really need to catch up or we’ll never meet again, and wouldn’t that be a pity? You must be tired of always being one step too late.  
I’ll wait for you until morning at Main Street and Clarke. We can have a go at it, and if you’re a really good girl, I won’t hurt you too much._

I clenched my fist over the elegant script. If we had read this before getting to the foreplay…

It was too late now, and there wasn’t much I could do about it until nightfall – and I wasn’t going to send her there alone, even if Angelus was probably long gone.

I burned the note in the ashtray; I didn’t want her to find it if she returned while I was in the shower. I shouldn’t have worried. It was hours until she came back.

***

When I got out of that dark motel room, out in the glaring sunlight, away from the scent of sex and away from Spike, my mind was too blank for me to form a coherent thought. I started walking, just following the sidewalk, not looking at where I was going, and the blank canvas became alive with memories. The images were so sharp, the touches so real that I had to stop, sit down. If there hadn’t been a diner right there, right then, I might just have sit down on the sidewalk.

The waitress offered me the chef’s special and I took it, without even hearing what it was. All I could hear was Spike’s voice. And mine. Every word I had said in the past hours. Every word I hadn’t said as well.

I hadn’t said no. I hadn’t said stop. I hadn’t asked him to slow down. I hadn’t taken a step back to think about what the hell was happening. 

I wished I could have blamed him for what had happened. It would have been easier if I had been able to put it all on him. Stake him for what he had done to me, and put it all behind me. Put how he had made me feel – so dirty – so good – into a drawer, lock it up, and throw the key along with his ashes.

But I couldn’t do any of it, because I had been willing, all the way through. I had been stupid enough to offer myself on a platter to a vamp. I was lucky all he had done was fuck me. Lucky I didn’t have holes in my throat. Lucky I wasn’t dead.

But then, it was becoming a pattern with me, wasn’t it? Play with fire and get burned. Act stupidly and realize the consequences of my actions too late. Wasn’t I the one who had caused Angel to lose his soul, not once but twice? If that hadn’t taught me anything, nothing would.

It took me all day sitting in that diner to decide whether I would go back or not. In the end, I did. What other choice did I have?

I went back, and with each step I clung to a promise I had made to myself. We would get back on the road, never speak of it, and never do it again. Those were the exact words I told Spike as soon as I entered the motel room. I had rehearsed them on my way there, and prepared answers to the objections he was bound to raise. He watched me for an hour – or at least it felt that long – and then he shrugged. Lit up a cigarette. Asked if I was ready to go.

Just like I had promised myself, we didn’t speak about what had happened, and it didn’t happen again.

Not for nine days.

***

In between a couple of private moments with my hand, my dick and my memories, I’d had enough time to plan out what I wanted to do that evening to try to catch up with Angelus. So once she was done pretending nothing had happened, we got into the car and I started driving.

“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice like a whip. “If there was a note last night, the cops must—”

“There was a note,” I cut in, and from the corner of my eye I saw her turn her head toward me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I glanced at her and just raised an eyebrow. She was the one who had said she never wanted to hear a word about our night in the same bed. She caught on fast, and blushed as she looked away.

“What did it say?” she muttered.

I couldn’t help wondering how long she would be able to dance around the elephant she had invited to travel with us.

“Main Street and Clarke.”

She chewed on that for a few seconds. “I didn’t think he’d stay in such a small town. He might be getting lazy.”

I couldn’t help it. I snorted. She should have known him better than that by now. “Or he might be tired of you not catching up with him.”

“Well, you’re behind the wheel, so—” Her retort stopped as abruptly as it had started. She was silent for a second, and when she talked again, she sounded suspicious. “Show me the note.”

I threw what was left of my cigarette through the window I had cracked open. 

“That’s Clarke.”

I parked the car and got out. Usually, I would have parked at a distance to avoid Angelus noticing me; we still hoped for the advantage of surprise. But I was sure he hadn’t waited. He can be patient if it’ll help him inflict even a minute more of pain or anguish, but there would have been no incentive for him to wait.

“What are you doing?” she hissed as she joined me.

I started looking around. If he’d waited until sunrise as the note had said, he had had enough time to get angry, and his anger leaves marks.

“Spike! Will you stop for a minute? What’s going on?”

There was a hint of warning in her voice. She was getting annoyed. And so was I.

“He’s gone,” I snapped. “That’s what’s going on.”

I kept looking around. I could see nothing. We were screwed – and not in the good way. I pulled out my fags, but just as I brought one to my lips she caught me, square in the jaw, no warning, no explanation. Before I could return the blow, she had turned her back on me and started walking away. The Slayer thought me so tamed that she dared offer me her back after hitting me.

I slipped into game face without even realizing what I was doing. I was going to teach her a lesson she wouldn’t forget—if she survived it.

***

I was mad at Spike, mad at myself, mad at Angelus. Mad at the world, I guess. People kept dying, and I was unable to stop it. Worse – people were dying, and instead of doing something about it, instead of going to confront the monster I had helped unleash, I had spent the night with a vampire.

I struck him because he was there and Angelus wasn’t. Because he wasn’t talking to me or explaining anything. I struck him because I wanted him to strike back.

And even as I did, I remembered how our last fight had ended. I couldn’t let it happen again – I refused to let it happen again. I turned away from him, started to walk away. I didn’t know where I was going, I just knew I had to get away from Spike.

I hadn’t taken three steps that he – there’s no other word for it – he roared. His hand gripped my arm, tight enough to hurt. He threw me against the nearest wall. Caught by surprise, I couldn’t stop him. All I could do was straighten up as he rushed to me so that I was facing him. He stared at me through the yellow eyes of his demon face. I don’t think I had ever seen him so furious.

“I killed two Slayers,” he hissed. “What makes you think I won’t kill you now? Are you daft enough to think turning your—”

He stopped abruptly and his eyes widened a little. His nostrils flared.

“Angelus.”

The word was just a whisper. He sniffed again and turned his head to the right.

“Here?” I asked, just as quietly.

“I’m…not sure. The trail is a couple of hours old, maybe.”

A couple of hours… that was the closest we had been to Angelus since…forever, it felt. Adrenaline pumped through me. Moments earlier, I had been ready to give up. Now I was ready to end it, and practically bouncing from excitement.

“Can you follow it?” 

He didn’t answer in words, but he started walking, a look of deep concentration on his face. I slipped a stake out of my jacket and followed. We walked to a bar, a couple of streets away. It seemed pretty busy from the outside, and I worried about finding anyone in that crowd. We didn’t go in, however, and Spike led the way down another street, then a small alley. He was still in game face and there were a couple of wide-eyed looks thrown our way from passing pedestrians and cars. I couldn’t have cared less, not when Angelus was – maybe – so close. Not when – maybe – it was all about to end. We’d attack him together, and somehow get the ring of his finger, and then I would stake him and it would be over. Really over.

Spike stopped, startling me out of my hopes. We were in front of the metal gate of what looked like a warehouse.

“Blood,” he said, very low. “Fresh. And I can hear sounds inside.”

My heart jumped inside my chest.

“Think you can find another entrance?” I asked as quietly as I could.

He looked up the façade of the building then down past the gate and gave a single nod.

“I go in this way.” I pointed at the gate. “If he’s in there, I’ll try to distract him so that you can take him by surprise.”

He nodded again and started walking away. I stopped him with a touch to his shoulder. He looked back, an eyebrow raised in a silent question.

“Don’t be late.” I stopped there before I could add “like last time”. That wouldn’t have helped.

“I won’t.” The hard look in his blue again eyes said he had heard my unspoken words. He seemed to hesitate, and then he added, so softly I almost didn’t hear, “Don’t get yourself killed.”

It would have been easy to believe he was concerned for my safety, but I couldn’t think of that now. I couldn’t let myself be distracted when Angelus was – maybe – a few feet away. I waited until Spike had disappeared past the corner of the building, took a deep breath in, and slid the gate in its rail with my free hand. It made a loud, metal on metal noise. If Angelus was there, he knew he had company.

***

A broken window high on the façade led me to the second floor of the warehouse. I was very careful not to make a noise as I walked in, but I was going fast. This time, I wouldn’t arrive after the fight. I could hear them talk, right beneath me, as I walked on, looking for the way down. As long as they talked, she was safe.

“I don’t like being stood up.” That was Angelus, voice hard as steel and yet, despite everything, a hint of mockery behind his words. “I waited for a long time. It was rude of you to miss our date.”

A few steps in front of me, a hole opened, with no guardrail or ladder. I approached, and walked around it until I had figured out where the Slayer and Angelus stood. 

“Date?” She let out a cold laugh. The girl had nerves, trying for a laugh now. “Maybe you didn’t get the memo, but I require my men to have souls.”

The drop was about fifteen feet. Angelus had his back to me, maybe seven or eight feet away from the hole. The Slayer was five feet in front of him. She shifted when I peeked down, but did not look up toward the ceiling; smart girl. I tried to think of a way to signal her to push him backward, and her mind must have followed the same path as mine. The round kick didn’t touch him, but he took a few steps back to avoid it. Just a little more and he’d be in the perfect spot for me to make my entrance.

“Your men?” It was Angelus’ turn to laugh. “You mean, someone is actually desperate enough to want to fuck you? Of course they wouldn’t know what a lousy—” 

He stopped abruptly, for no reason I could see. I wanted to curse and bit down the inside of my cheek to keep quiet. He was still too far for me to drop on him.

“Did you know,” Angelus asked, all amusement gone from his voice only to be replaced by a quiet cruelty, “that your new lover spent his first years as a vampire on his knees in front of me?”

I didn’t hesitate for a second. I jumped down. He knew I was there, so there was no reason to try to surprise him anymore. In retrospect, I should have realized he would be able to smell my scent on her. She’d taken a shower and washed away the scent of sex, but there was more than that. We’d been practically living in the car for days; all her clothes smelled like me.

Even if he now stood between the two of us with his back to me, Angelus didn’t seem troubled in the slightest. He kept his eyes on her, but his words were clearly for me.

“Ah, there he is. Well, boy, did you tell her? Did you tell her how much you like a cock shoved down your throat or up your tight little ass? She’s kind of lacking the equipment, but I guess with a little creativity…”

White-hot anger burned through my veins and I launched myself at him. I didn’t care that she’d knew. What I cared about, what enraged me, was the memory of what he had done to me weeks earlier in Los Angeles. It was, also, the still wrenching realization that had struck me then; the vampire I had once called my Sire was gone for good, soul or no soul. What was left was a monster, no more no less.

I attacked. The Slayer joined in. The three of us danced.

***

I got close to getting myself killed, that night.

I had been really focused when entering the warehouse. I was going to kill Angelus, and that was the end of it. There was nothing else in my mind. But then…

Then I saw the blood. So much blood, just like that first message Angelus had left for me, back in Sunnydale. In the middle of all that dark red, it took me a while to see the form of the girl. And I knew I was too late. Just like I had been too late for Giles and Willow and Oz and all these people we had left behind us to be mourned and buried. 

That was the first crack in my confidence.

I could still have taken him. When we started talking, I didn’t let him get under my skin. Not until he started talking about Spike, that is. I didn’t know how he had guessed, but to hear him call Spike my lover froze the blood in my veins. I guess until that moment, with just Spike and I knowing, it felt less…real. Someone else knew, now. That wasn’t good.

It got worse when Angelus continued talking and hinting at what he had done to Spike. The memory of Spike’s injuries when he had first come to find me resurfaced. I hadn’t paid them much mind then. Actually, I couldn’t have cared less. Now, though, to my own surprise, I realized I did care. Just to imagine Spike being hurt like that… After all the time we had spent in the car, and even with all of our arguments, I guess…I guess I had started caring about him a little. More than I even knew.

He looked mad when he jumped down from the second floor and attacked Angelus. No, not mad. It was more than that. He was out of his mind. The ring was in plain view on Angelus’ hand, but it was easy to tell it was the farthest thing from Spike’s mind. I joined in, and tried to repeat to myself that the ring was the important thing, that we’d never end this fight if we didn’t take it from him. That was just one more thing to distract me.

We fought for a while. The three of us gave out and received blows. There was blood trickling from Angelus’ mouth and Spike’s scalp. I was the last one to be hurt – with my own stake, if you can believe that. Angelus sent Spike to the ground. I tried to go at him from behind, more to distract him so that we could get the ring than anything else, really. He must have heard me because he turned and grabbed my wrist just as I was trying to stake his shoulder. He twisted my arm, bent low, and then there was nothing but pain. I looked down at myself. The stake was protruding from my thigh. There was a lot of blood.

“Aww, see what you made me do?”

I stumbled backward, and arm thrown behind me, looking for support. There was nothing. Nothing but Angelus, slowly advancing toward me, his twisted grin at odds with the gentle tone of his voice.

“I wanted to stake you, yes, but not like that. It was supposed to be your hands first. The legs were going to come much later.”

He reached toward me as though to grab the stake or push it deeper, I don’t know which. I hurt so much, I couldn’t move any faster. I closed my eyes.

There was a loud noise, and when I looked again, Angelus was on the ground, face down but already looking up. Spike dropped the piece of rebar he had used and reached for me. I screamed.

“Kill him! Get the ring!”

Too late. Angelus was up. Spike was dragging me to the door, ignoring my shouts of pain and rage. Angelus’ laughter stayed with me all the way back to the motel, and long after.

***

I managed to drag her down the alley before she shook off my grip on her and started yelling even louder than she had so far.

“Why didn’t you finish him? You had him down, you could have taken the ring, you could have killed him and be done with it and—”

“Your artery is touched. Are you going to shut up now or do you plan on bleeding to death?”

She looked down at her leg, at the stake still embedded in her thigh, and made as if to pull it out. I caught her wrist before she could touch it.

“You don’t want to do that,” I warned her. “You need—”

I guess either the pain or the blood loss caught up with her then, because she collapsed, passed out. I caught her before she could hit the ground and hurt herself even further. She felt light as air, little thing that she is. I got back to a large street, hailed a cab and after a flash of fangs he agreed to drive us to the closest emergency room. 

I stayed outside while they did what they had to do, both because I needed a fag and because I was sure Angelus would track us down. An hour or so before sunrise, I had finished my pack, and there had been no sign of him. I went back in to look for her. She was still in the ER, though no one was by her side. Her leg was heavily bandaged. She was awake, her face and lips as pale as her pillow.

“How do you feel?”

She wet her lips before answering. “I heard them say they don’t know how I survived after losing so much blood. But I’ll be OK. Slayer healing and all that.”

The ER was just about deserted. No one was close enough to hear, but I lowered my voice anyway.

“Ready to leave before they start asking too many questions?”

Her lips tightened in what was almost a smile. “Why do you think I’m still down here? No admission without proof of insurance.” She snorted, and sat up in the bed, wincing when she jostled her leg. Her paper gown crinkled. “I’m not sure I can walk.”

“OK. Where are your clothes?”

We both looked around, but without luck. I could hear a nurse or doctor, in the next room, and she sounded like she was on her way to check on Buffy. I slid out of my coat and held it out to her.

“Put that on. I’ll carry you out and we’ll catch a cab to the motel.”

She pulled her IV off and stood, keeping off her bad leg and hobbling as she slipped the duster on. She grimaced, although I’m not sure if it was from pain or something else. She closed it over her chest and nodded, and then we were off. Someone tried to stop us, but again, it’s amazing what a show of fangs can do.

I couldn’t find a cab. The motel was just five blocks down, so I just walked, trying my best not to move her leg too much. She closed her eyes, but I knew she wasn’t asleep. Her lips were pinched tight; she had to be in pain. She didn’t make a sound.

“You should have killed him,” she said after a few minutes, without the heat that had colored her words earlier. “It was our best chance yet.”

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t tell her that it had been a choice – kill him or save her – and that I’d do it the same way again if I had to. I had made the same choice before on that roof in the first days of our little trip. Back then, though, I hadn’t known why. This time, I did. I wanted to keep her alive more than I wanted to see him dead. And the hell if I knew what to think about that.

***

With every step Spike took, my leg moved. Every time my leg moved, pain shot through me like acid spreading through my veins. Whatever the doctors had given me at the hospital for pain had worn off long ago; I guess they’d never heard of a Slayer’s metabolism. That’d have been fun to explain. They’d probably have had me committed. As it was, I know they discussed calling social services – because of my age, because of how much older the man who had carried me in had seemed, because I wasn’t even giving them a name, let alone a reason for the presence of a pointy bit of wood in my leg. At least, they had fixed me. But the pain…

I’m sure he was trying to be gentle. It took us an awful lot of time to get back to the motel, more than it would have if he had been walking at his normal pace. Gentle or not, I hurt. Worse, I had nothing to distract me from the pain – or at least, nothing that I wanted to think about.

I tried to talk about Angelus, but Spike didn’t reply. It probably was better this way. I’d need to ask why he hadn’t taken that chance to kill him, if we talked about this fiasco. I can’t say I looked forward to that conversation.

The only other thought that ran through my mind was how close I was to him, and I couldn’t let myself dwell on that. I couldn’t think about his arms, one behind my knees, the other at my back, so strong and steady. I couldn’t think about my arms either, and how well they fit around his neck. Couldn’t think about his chest, or how comfortable his shoulder was against my cheek. The smell of leather was all around me, and in my mind it is so purely him that it felt like he was around me, like every inch of his duster touching me was his hand – and with the hospital gown covering so little of me, it felt like he was touching me all over. Like we were back in bed.

And no, I wasn’t thinking about any of that, not at all.

After what had surely been hours of walking, I felt him slow down. I opened my eyes, thankful that we were there at last, but quickly realized we weren’t.

“What is it?” I asked, immediately tensing in his arms.

“Angelus’ scent.”

I kicked my legs, ignoring the pain and forcing him to let me down, though he kept an arm at my waist. It felt strange, but I wasn’t sure I could stand on my own so I let him. I looked all around us, searching but finding nothing save for our motel a hundred yards or so away, and a slowly lightening sky. Morning would be on us soon.

“Where is he?” I asked, gritting my teeth.

“I…I don’t know.” He turned his face into the wind, breathing in deeply. “He was here, but I think he’s gone.”

He picked me up again, ignoring my half protest; I knew I couldn’t have walked to the motel, but I didn’t like the idea of being a sitting duck for Angelus, so to speak. I think we realized at the same time that the door of our room had been forced open. Spike didn’t stop again, which I took as a proof of his certainty that Angelus wasn’t there. Indeed, he wasn’t – but he had been.

There was an outfit, laid out on the bed. A black lace corset, a red leather miniskirt, a thong and fishnet hose. Next to it, the light reflected off the metal spikes of a collar attached to a leash. Between the two, a letter waited.

I made him put me down again and started for the bed, but he was faster than me. He grabbed the letter. I watched his face as he read it. A stone wouldn’t have shown more emotions. Predictably, he pulled out his lighter from his jeans, no doubt to burn yet another of Angelus’ missives. I hobbled to him and clasped his wrist before he could do that. Our eyes met above the wavering flame of his lighter; he was the first to look away.

“You don’t need to read that,” he muttered, but he let me take the letter from him.

The handwriting was as elegant as always. 

_An outfit for the little whore, and the only accessory her new pet needs._

_A piece of advice for her: Make him bleed, he enjoys it even more than he enjoys making others bleed for him._

_A piece of advice for him: Fuck her well while you can. It’ll be much harder to do after I cut off your cock and make her eat it._

_And a date, if you want to make it a threesome again. We didn’t get to play quite enough yet, don’t you think? I always wondered what the other Hellmouth was like. I’ll wait for you. Don’t make me wait too long, though. You really don’t want to test my patience again._

I felt like throwing up. Spike still had the lighter in his hand. I took it from him and burned the letter myself, holding on to it until the flames were licking my fingers.

“I don’t think he’ll be back,” Spike said slowly. “And you probably should be lying down. But—”

I didn’t let him finish. I knew what he was going to say, and with the impending sunrise, we didn’t have much time.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Half an hour later, we were in another county and entering our new motel room. Spike carried me in and put me in bed. I had been dozing off, and I didn’t realize he was undressing me until I was under the covers and naked. My heart jumped then. I was sure he’d climb in with me. 

He didn’t.

I spent half the morning wondering why not.

***

Angelus had given us rendezvous on the ‘other Hellmouth’ – Cleveland, then – but I didn’t get a minute of shuteye that day. He could have left already, or he could still be around, waiting for us to let down our guard to slaughter us like innocent lambs. Or worse.

I spent hours seated behind the sheer window curtain, a stake in hand. The indirect light filtering in was so bright it hurt my eyes, but it didn’t even occur to me to stop my vigil. If he came, it would all be on me. There was no way the Slayer could fight with the state her leg was in, and that wouldn’t change for a few days at least. I wondered how long it’d take her to heal. It wouldn’t help us if she rushed to battle only half-healed.

She needed rest, but it was hours before her heartbeat and breathing finally settled into the calm rhythm of sleep. A couple of times, I opened my mouth to tell her – I don’t know. Tell her she was safe. Tell her if she didn’t get some sleep, I was going to whack her over the head and force her to sleep. I’m not sure I believed either, so I said nothing.

With the help of a few stormy clouds, sunset came early. She had to be famished; hell, I was too. I put on my duster, a little troubled that it smelled like her, now, and waited for her to hobble back out of the bathroom. She’d put on an oversized t-shirt and pajama pants. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and her lips were pressed tightly together. She had to be in pain, but she hadn’t made a sound since I’d put her in bed.

“I’ll go get food,” I told her, answering her silent question.

“I’m coming,” she said at once.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“And I don’t think sitting here alone is a better one.”

She had a point. She didn’t pronounce Angelus’ name, but I heard it loud and clear. Still, walking around couldn’t possibly be good for her.

“How ‘bout you stay in the car?” I offered. 

It was the best compromise I could think of, and that’s how we did it. We got food from a drive through for her, then I left her in the car and went out alone. I could feel her eyes on me as I walked away, but she had long ago stopped asking where I found blood or money. She was better off not knowing, but I know she wondered. The way she refused to meet my eyes when I came back was unnerving.

“Here. Thought you might need this.”

She took the small bottle of pills I was handing her; her eyebrows climbed halfway up her forehead.

“Vicodin? Where did you get that?”

I started the car. We couldn’t fight yet, but at least we could get closer to Cleveland.

“A pharmacy. Where else?”

I threw a glance at her. She was staring at the pills as though trying to decide if they were poison.

“I didn’t kill anyone to get them,” I said with a snort.

Killed, no. Used creative persuasion, yes. But she hadn’t asked.

She finally took a couple of pills. Minutes later, she was asleep. Her head flopped around with every turn in the road until I thought she’d hurt her neck or crack her head open on the window. As gently as I could so I wouldn’t wake her, I snaked my right arm at her waist and pulled her body closer so that her head rested on my shoulder. She felt so warm. 

It was that night that I wondered for the first time what would happen after Angelus was dust.

***

A few days passed. My thigh slowly healed until I could walk – not far, and limping heavily, but it was something. We kept driving north toward Ohio and trying to find news of Angelus. There was nothing. Nothing blatant, that is. Of course there were reports of disappearances, but they couldn’t all be his work, and there was no way to know where he might have been. After days and days of following a trail of blood and death, it should have been soothing. Instead, I couldn’t help thinking that when we found him, we’d find something worse than I could imagine.

The atmosphere in the car and the succession of motel rooms was even more tense than before, but much quieter. We went hours without exchanging more than a word or two. It was unnerving, and even more so because I didn’t know why Spike was so quiet. Was it because he didn’t want to get into a fight with me when I was hurt? Most of our fights went from verbal to physical, so I guess it was more prudent not to go that route. Or maybe he was angry about letting Angelus go to stop me from bleeding out. I still couldn’t help thinking Angelus should have been his first priority. Or maybe… maybe he was embarrassed by what Angelus had revealed about their past. I doubt he’d have wanted me to know about it – and honestly, I’d rather not have known.

The night we crossed the state border into Ohio, he stopped in a deserted parking lot long before the sun was going to be a problem and looked at me until I started being uncomfortable.

“What? Why are we stopping here?”

“Get out of the car.”

Before I could ask what for, he was already out and walking a small distance away from the car. I joined him, wincing when putting weight on my leg after hours of driving had pain shooting through my thigh. It had been a hot day, and I could feel the heat still radiating back from the asphalt under my feet.

“We’ll be in Cleveland tomorrow night,” he said when I approached him. “Are you ready to fight?”

“Of course I’m ready—”

He attacked. His kick came with no warning, and I barely had time to stumble back.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I shouted, incensed. I don’t think I could have felt more betrayed if he’d suddenly told me he’d been working with Angelus all along.

“You said you’re ready. Prove it. Or I’ll leave you here and go after him on my own.”

I snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“You think I wouldn’t?”

He attacked again. And again. At first, I just evaded his blows, staying just far away not to really give him a chance to touch me, ignoring the pain lancing through my leg. I realized he wasn’t going to be satisfied with that, though, and after a while I started parrying, and striking back. It was hardly the best fight we’d ever had – I was far from my top form, and he wasn’t doing his best. But I could see he’d had a point. It had only been days since my last confrontation with Angelus, but I felt rusty. I needed the training – and that was what we were doing, despite his claims of wanting proofs.

“We’d better stop,” he said out of the blue maybe half an hour after we’d started. “You’re bleeding again.”

I looked at my leg. There was no blood seeping through my jeans, and although it hurt, it wasn’t more than I could take. He refused to listen, though. A few minutes later, we were checking into a motel. I took the first aid kit with me into the bathroom and removed my pants. He’d been right; my bandage was bloody. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, I took it off. It didn’t look too bad. A couple of days and it’d be scabbed over. Just as I was thinking that, Slayer healing or not I’d have one hell of a scar, the door opened and Spike walked in.

“Hey!” I protested, hyperaware that I was sitting there in my panties. “A little privacy?”

He came closer and squatted down to look at my leg, touching with delicate fingers that startled me and nearly made me lose my balance.

“Just wanted to see how bad it was,” he said gruffly. “I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.”

I shrugged. “Angelus will push harder. I’ve got to be ready.”

He grabbed the first aid kit from the sink and put it down on the floor, opening it to find cotton and disinfectant.

“I can do that,” I said quickly, but he ignored me.

“We both have to be ready,” he said as he cleaned the blood, more gentle than I would have thought he could be. “If we keep fighting the same way, we won’t get anywhere.”

I should have pointed out that we’d had a good opportunity and that he had let it pass, but, distracted by the play of his fingers on my skin, it didn’t occur to me. The touch was awakening memories I had tried very hard to bury at the back of my mind.

“We should come up with a better plan,” he continued, oblivious to the trouble I had focusing. “Not just attack him at the same time, but fight together.”

He was done with my bandage. I hadn’t felt a thing. I watched him stand, and what he had said finally permeated my mind. 

“A plan,” I repeated. “What do you have in mind?”

We were up until sunrise figuring out what we were going to do. For the first time in…too long, I could feel hope again.

***

In retrospect, I guess it’s easy to say we were idiots. We’d been running after Angelus, thinking that being two on his trail would double our chances. It didn’t work like that, not when we fought as though we both were alone. We needed to take him not just at the same time, but together. We needed a plan.

It took us a while to put it together. I’m not used to playing with others, and neither is she, her merry band of sidekicks notwithstanding. But we thought it through, and when we were done, I was sure we’d have a good shot at taking care of Angelus. Even with how it turned out, I still think it was a good plan. 

It was morning by the time we were done. I was so hyped up, I felt like I could have taken Angelus right there and then. Instead, I was stuck inside, with not much to do other than pacing, and with the memory of silky skin beneath my fingers dancing in my mind. She had climbed into one of the two beds, but I knew she wasn’t asleep. I knew her heartbeat and breathing patterns well enough by now to be able to tell even when she was pretending.

I’d drawn the shades to keep the sun out, but there was still more than enough light for me to see her face, eyes closed, lips a little puffy from a punch, earlier, than had landed a bit stronger than I expected. I’d needed to know how healed she was, so there had been no point in really trying to hurt her. Knowing that her face would be healed by morning wasn’t silencing the pangs of discomfort I felt.

I watched her pretend to sleep, watched those lips I had kissed, just a few days earlier, those lips that had touched my body in delightfully sinful ways, and I grew hard, so damn hard that a wank in the loo wasn’t going to help, this time. It hadn’t been helping in too long. As much as we weren’t talking about it, that one, glorious fuck remained at the forefront of my mind – how could I have forgotten, when I was with her, day and night, with rarely more than a few minutes of respite? Even when she slept, even when she pretended to sleep—

There’s only so far you can push me before I’ll break.

I don’t know what I thought I was doing, when I approached her bed. No, wait, that’s not true. I know what I was thinking. Nothing. My mind was empty. All I could see was her mouth, her perfect little Slayer mouth, a little less perfect because of me. All I could hear was her heart, picking up with every second I stood by her bed; she knew I was there, but she kept her eyes closed. I think that’s what decided me, in the end. If she’d just looked at me, given me one of those ‘you filthy murderer’ looks I’d seen only too often in her eyes, I’d have backed the hell off. But that’s the thing. She didn’t look. Didn’t move. Didn’t tell me to fuck off.

And when I leaned down to kiss her, after that first second of frozen surprise, she kissed me back.

***

Of course I knew he was there.

After weeks of being constantly near him, my Slayer sense wasn’t warning me anymore in the ‘Danger! Vampire! Kill now!’ way. Instead, it was as though it had been fine-tuned. When before I would just have known a vamp was close by, now I knew which one, and where exactly. What it wasn’t telling me, however, was what Spike’s intentions were exactly. Although I figured that out when he kissed me.

For a second, just a second, I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, caught between the certitude that this was wrong, so very, very wrong, and the inescapable fact that it felt right. I wanted to push him away and ask him what in hell he thought he was doing – and at the same time, I wanted him to keep doing it.

I told what was left of my sanity to be quiet, and kissed him back. I did more than that. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him onto the bed with me. And regretted it instantly when his leg pressed into my thigh.

“Oww!”

By pure reflex, I tried to shove him out of the bed, angry with him even though I was the one who had pulled him on top of me. He didn’t let me push him away, though, grabbing my hand and holding it tight in his, and when I tried to talk he covered my mouth with his again. When before it had been just lips, this time there was tongue, a deliciously wicked tongue that distracted me and made me forget the pain still lancing through my leg, albeit not so badly now that he had adjusted his position. 

He was now lying on top of me, just enough to the side to be straddling my good leg without hurting me again, resting on his forearm so he wouldn’t crush me. I could feel his cock through the thin layer of my pajamas and the not so thin one of his jeans. He was hard, so hard already when all he had done was kiss me. Did he want me that badly? I could also feel his upper thigh, pressing rhythmically against my crotch and building pressure there, too much pressure, too much heat and wetness, too fast. I was losing my breath in his kiss, losing myself in him, losing my grip on why, just a moment before, this had seemed like such a bad idea. 

I whimpered when he let go of my hand – and whimpered again when his fingers slid beneath my top to find my breasts. My nipples were tight little nubs before he even touched them. I practically jumped when he did. Pain returned in a blinding flash.

“This isn’t going to work,” I gasped, turning my head to free myself from his kiss. “My leg—”

His growl should not have sounded so damn sexy. And I should not have felt so…bereft when he stood. But then I saw him undress – or rather, I guessed he was undressing from what I could see of his movements and from the sound of fabric falling to the floor. My mouth was dry, suddenly.

“Take off your pants,” he demanded, his voice both deep and low.

It didn’t even occur to me not to do it.

I heard him step around the bed, and when I tried to turn to face him, his hand gripped my arm, both gentle and unyielding.

“Roll onto your side.”

Again, I did as he was saying, rolling away from him until I was resting on my good leg. This time, though, I managed a weak protest.

“My leg…”

I felt him slide in the bed against my back, and lost my voice at the feel of his cock tracing a wet line against my ass. His hand rested on my thigh, just a few inches beneath the wound, and I was more aware of that innocent touch than of the pain.

“How’s your leg now?” he asked, the words a caress behind my neck.

I shivered.

“O…OK.”

His hand moved, just barely, adjusted my leg to give him access to my core, and then his cock was there, sliding in easily, painlessly, and all I could think was how well we fit together. His arm curled around my waist and he sneaked his hand beneath my top again, finding my neglected nipples and making me buck back into him. His cock slid in just a little deeper.

“How ‘bout now?”

I wanted to answer, wanted to say that it was more than OK, wanted to ask him to move, to do something, anything before I died of being so close to pleasure and yet so far. I didn’t say anything, though. I couldn’t say anything. Not when his mouth had found the scars at the crook of my neck. Not when his teeth were scraping against them. Not when his hand was alternating tender caresses and light pinches. Not when his cock was thrusting inside me, slow and steady. Not when the thought popped into my mind, blinding and shattering, that the last time I had felt like this, I had been in love.

***

I could have killed her, that morning.

I’d had many opportunities, since the beginning of our little trip, but never one as clear cut as this one. My mouth was on her neck, and she didn’t even flinch. She just kept moving against me, kept making those lovely little noises in her throat. If I’d bitten, there’s no way she could have done anything about it.

I didn’t bite her, but I did think about it. Thought about how sweet her blood would be, how strong. Thought it wouldn’t take long to steal enough of her blood that her heart would start stuttering. Thought it wouldn’t take much longer than that to feed her my blood and make her mine. Completely, utterly, forever mine. The longest part would be the waiting, but if I did it right, when she woke at nightfall, she’d look at me as though I were her entire world. 

We would finish our little trip, finish Angelus, and then the world would be ours to take. She’d make a superb vampire. 

I thought about it. With every slide of my cock inside her, I thought about it. With every breathy moan that passed her lips. With every tremor that shook her body. With every scrape of my teeth – teeth, not fangs – against the scars that marked her as Angel’s.

I thought about it. And I decided it’d be a shame never to hear her heart again.

Our first time, a few nights back had been wild, if I can say so myself. It had been fucking in its purest, rawest, most beautiful form. This time was…nothing like it. We rocked together for what felt like forever, slow moves, elusive touches. It was - not that I’d ever admit saying this – it was sweet.

And it was even sweeter when she came with my name on her lips.

We fell asleep like this, spooned, warm and snugly. Like true lovers rather than accidental bedmates.

I woke up, some time during the morning. A small touch to her leg, and she opened herself to me again. Slow and gentle, then. She shuddered against me, moaning quietly, but never fully woke up.

Hours later, it was her heartbeat that pulled me out of sleep again, like it had on our first morning after. From deep sleep to near panic in two seconds flat. I pulled my arm back, expecting her to bolt and go hide in the bathroom again. Another round of ‘we’ll never talk about this’ coming, without a doubt.

She took a deep breath and slipped out of bed. I watched her tiptoe to the bathroom. Lovely arse. After a little while, she came back. Slipped back into bed until that perfect arse was spooned against me again. She went back to sleep moments after I had curled my arm around her again and stayed there until it was time for both of us to get out of bed.

***

“Is that the best you can do? You’re fighting like…like a girl!”

There was blood at the corner of Spike’s mouth, just a trickle. He was smiling way too much for someone who was being pummeled like a punching bag.

Of course, he clearly didn’t seem to think I was hitting him hard enough. Maybe it was time to remedy that. I attacked again, and this time I tried to shut down my brain so I wouldn’t hold back. 

Waking up next to him had been…strange. And the strangest part of all was that I wasn’t wigged about it. On the other hand, I was wigged about not being wigged, if that makes any sense.

I took a hard look at myself in the mirror, when I escaped to the bathroom. The dark circles around my eyes weren’t anything new, and neither was how pale I looked under the cheap fluorescent lights. Weeks of keeping vampire hours will do that to a girl. There was also that spot, on my neck. Dark red, or even a little purple. It should have scared me that a vampire had left a hickey on me. Instead, I caught myself touching it and wondering how long it would obscure Angel’s bite mark.

I knew, abstractly, that my mind should have been just as much of a mess as after out first night in the same bed. My mind, however, was quiet. I was tired, a little achy in all the right places, surprisingly not achy where I expected to be, and more than a little sticky all over, but all of that was what my body felt, not what I felt. What I felt was calm. 

I hadn’t felt calm since that day, back in Sunnydale, when I had seen Giles’ apartment go up in flames on the news.

The thought was threatening to break my peace, as was that other thought, the one I refused to consider, the one that had shaken me so much, a few hours earlier. So, I stopped thinking, cleaned up a little, and went back to bed. Went back to him. Went back to the quiet.

We could have reached Cleveland that night, but when we got up, I suggested that we slow down. I didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t feel physically ready. I expected Spike to argue with me about it, but he was quiet, for a while. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I watched him get dressed, the way he had watched me, just moments earlier. Turnabout was only fair.

“We go tonight, you’re not at your best yet, and maybe he gets away,” he said at last, looking back at me. “We wait one more night and we’ve got a better chance of taking him down.” He shrugged. “It’s up to you. Can you live with yourself knowing maybe someone else died because we didn’t get there sooner?”

Two things struck me at that moment. He had learned to know me well enough to pinpoint where my problem was – and he had no such problem himself. For him, it was completely personal. He didn’t care if Angelus killed one more person, or a hundred. I’d always known that, but I think I might have forgotten. Or maybe I had wanted to forget. At that moment, I found that I was more interested about the why than the how.

“What did he do to you?” I asked before I even knew what words were passing my lips.

His features closed instantly. “Tell you what, luv.” He lit up a cigarette and exhaled in my direction. He knew I hated that. “You don’t ask that kind of questions, and I won’t bring up the way you sound when my dick’s up your lovely cunt.”

My face felt hot, suddenly, and I wasn’t sure whether it was from anger or shame. He looked away when I didn’t answer and slipped on his duster.

“Let’s get out of here. We can decide what to do after we find food. ‘M feeling peckish.”

And that was it. The closest we came to talking about what happened was when he asked how my leg felt. I just know at that moment he remembered what we’d been doing the last time he had asked – the same way I remembered it myself.

My leg was better, but there were still twinges of pain, every now and then, like needles crawling up my thigh – you know, if needles could crawl. We found another parking lot, and we started sparring. That was how he ended up calling me a girl.

You’d think after sleeping with me twice it would have dawned on him what my gender was. I almost pointed it out to him, but the words refused to come out. Danger, Buffy Summers. Stay away from that topic altogether.

I tried to do better, after that, but it really wasn’t easy. Call me crazy, but it’s pretty hard to beat up someone and mean it when you can’t help wondering if you’ve fallen in love with him.

***

I was glad we didn’t try to reach Cleveland that night. Her fighting was crap. She wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in front of Angelus. I tried to push her, tried to egg her on, and she responded with bursts of good fighting – they just never lasted long. We sparred until three or four that morning, and then hopped into the car and drove north. I tried to figure out a way to say it nicely, but in the end, niceties aren’t my thing. Bluntness is more like it.

“You’ve never fought that badly before. Last night made your leg worse?”

Her heartbeat jumped. I guess even allusions weren’t OK.

“No, no, it’s fine,” she stuttered. “I’ll be fine. I was just…distracted.”

I threw a glance at her and her heart did that jumping thing again. 

“Not distracted,” she said quickly. “More like…I don’t know. We’ve been on the road for a while. I just wish it’d end.”

I didn’t have anything to answer to that. I knew what she meant. I was tired of running after Angelus too. I like the hunt as much as any other vamp, but in this game of cat and mouse, I wasn’t sure who was truly doing the hunting.

“We could take another night to get there,” I suggested. “Give you more time to get ready.”

“No.” This time, she didn’t stutter or hesitate. “Just point me at Angelus and I’ll be ready.”

“That’s not the plan,” I reminded her.

“I know, it’ll just be easier when it’s him in front of me.”

I frowned at that, and looked at her again. What did it mean that she’d find it easier to fight him than to fight me? I turned that in my mind for a while, but I didn’t find any answer – or at least, I didn’t find one that was likely to be true.

Sunrise found us on I71, somewhere between Columbus and Cleveland. I left the highway; the motel was just off the exit ramp. Speaking for the first time in hours, she cleared her throat and asked:

“Do you have enough money for two rooms?”

That answered the half-formed question in my mind as to whether there’d be a repeat of the previous night or not.

“No,” I lied. 

She didn’t question my answer, even though I was pretty sure she knew I was lying. I had given her money for food, earlier that night, and she had probably seen how much money I had on me.

When we got to the room, she looked at the king-sized bed and her face tightened.

“I’ll take the bed first,” she mumbled. “Wake me in four hours.”

I didn’t think about it twice. “No.”

Her eyes threw stakes at me.

“We’re not—”

“We’ll be in Cleveland tonight. Broken sleep isn’t going to help either of us.”

By the panicked look she gave me, you’d think I had forced her or something. I almost reminded her that she’d been a willing participant, all the way though, but honestly, I wasn’t up to playing her games. She wanted to pretend nothing happened, let her delude herself. I knew the truth. She’d wanted it just as much as I had – and she had enjoyed herself just as much, too.

“The bed’s big enough,” I snapped at her. “Your precious Slayer virtue won’t be sullied.” I stepped to the bed, sat on the edge and toed off my shoes. “Not any more than it already is.”

Her scent was a mix of confusion and hurt. I rubbed my nose and looked back at her. If she wanted me out of her bed that much—

She finally moved forward, sliding the strap of her duffel bag off her shoulder. She put it on the floor, knelt down next to it, pulled out pajamas. A few minutes in the bathroom and she was slipping in the bed, as far away from me as she could. It took her a long time, to fall asleep. It took me even longer.

***

Once I managed to fall asleep, I slept pretty well. That didn’t stop me from wondering, when I woke up, if I’d have slept even better with Spike’s arms around me.

I was the first out of bed, somewhere in the middle of the afternoon. For me, with the hours I had been holding, that was morning, and I was famished. I got dressed and went fishing in Spike’s duster pockets for money. I was quiet, as quiet as I could be, but even so when I turned around his eyes were open and looking straight at me. He didn’t protest about me taking his cash – and I didn’t point out he could have gotten the two rooms I had suggested when we’d arrived to the motel.

“Breakfast,” was all I said. 

He replied by closing his eyes again.

There was a fast food place just across the road. I was sick of fast food, sick of craving milk and cereals and having to go with burgers and fries. When all of this was over, I thought when I sat outside in the sun with my take-out bag, I’d go vegan for a while. I’d learn to cook. I’d do the three meals a day, food pyramid and all deal.

I think that day was the first time I dared to truly imagine what I’d do, _after_.

My breakfast, if I can call it that, didn’t take long, but I stayed outside even then, soaking in sunlight. It felt good, after all these long nights. I’m not sure how long I stayed there. After a while, I rested my cheek on my knee and closed my eyes, letting my mind drift to what was to happen that night, reviewing that plan Spike and I had built so carefully. If it worked, I might enjoy my food pyramid dream sooner rather than later.

If it worked…would the truce be over right away? Would Spike try to kill me, or would he leave, or would he drive me home, or… so many options. I wondered which he’d choose. It didn’t occur to me that I would have choices to make, then, too.

“You ready?”

Night had fallen, and with it the scent of cigarette smoke and leather curled around me like a well-worn coat.

“Ready. You?”

Standing, I looked at him. My bag hung against his hip. He gave me a tense smile.

“Always. You don’t want to…dress up for the occasion?”

I didn’t understand what he meant by that, not until he pointed out to my neck. I was wearing a tank top and my hair was in a ponytail. The scars were fully exposed – the scars, and Spike’s hickey on top of them. I thought about it for a second, then shook my head.

“Plan’s to make him angry, isn’t it? Won’t that help?”

He let out of bark of laughter. “Oh yeah, it’ll help, no doubt there.”

We started for the car. We were already on the highway before he said, almost hesitating:

“Speaking about making him angry…”

“What? Don’t tell me you can’t do it.”

Everything depended on that. According to Spike, the night he had almost killed me – the night Spike had failed to kill him – Angelus had been mad beyond words. That was why, still according to Spike, he’d focused on me and all but forgotten Spike was there as well. The plan was to make him angry enough that he would do it again, except this time Spike would draw his focus and I’d go for the ring. Dangerous, of course, but we’d been so close before, we were both ready to risk it. And this time, we would be prepared for it.

“Oh, I can do it,” he said with a dry chuckle. “It’s just…remember I’m talking to him, all right?” He wasn’t laughing anymore. “Whatever I say, don’t get your knickers in a twist for it.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

I didn’t understand what he meant right then. I only truly got it later that night, after we’d found Angelus. By the time I remembered his warning, though, it was too late. I had already ruined it all.

***

We didn’t find him, our first night in Cleveland. He found us. He’d said he’d be waiting for us, and he was. We didn’t let that stop us, though, and we fell into place, just like the plan said. And just like the plan said, I started working on making him angry. I’ve had a lot of training at it, and I’m not bragging when I say I’m _good_ at it.

I guess I was so good I managed to upset her as well without meaning to.

Hell, I’d told her not to take things personally. She’d said she wouldn’t. I could hardly have warned her any better. It wasn’t my fault that everything went haywire. It wasn’t my fault, even if it sure felt like it.

I don’t remember what I said exactly. Not that I particularly want to remember. I wasn’t paying attention to my words, I was paying attention to Angelus, to how his face and scent and movements were changing while I taunted him about never fucking her properly or never teaching her the finer points of a blowjob or… you get the idea. And the plan was working, he was mad, sprouting nonsense about her being his and me having no right to touch her or mark her or put my dick anywhere in her and how he’d cut it off and…you get the idea, there too. He wasn’t just mad, he was jealous. 

I’d guessed he was after the little display he had left in our motel room back in Lawrence, and the way he reacted just proved it beyond doubt. I wasn’t exactly surprised, to tell the truth. He’d bitten her, taken her virginity – and it didn’t matter that much that Angel had done it. In the end, what mattered was that it had been his fangs and his cock. If he hadn’t cared one way or the other, he’d have killed her in Sunnydale rather than starting this merry chase around the country. Instead, he was slowly breaking her spirit. I don’t think she had realized what he had in mind, but I had. I knew him enough to see it as plainly as though he had announced his plans. He would turn her, in the end, if he had the chance. He’d break her mind, turn her, and mold her into his perfect toy. 

So yeah, in the meantime, he was jealous that I was traveling with her – and doing more than travel. I could almost have found that funny if she had taken that chance to attack him from behind while he was too distracted with me to even remember she was there.

But she didn’t get to him. She just stood there, a few feet behind him, shaking so hard she dropped the stake she held. I chanced a glance at her in the middle of my fight with Angelus, and when I met her eyes I realized she was crying. The next second, she started running. Not running to Angelus, as she should have. She ran away

I almost wish I hadn’t understood why, but I did.

I probably should have kept fighting, but my mind wasn’t to it. As soon as I could, I left the fight – and was a little surprised when Angelus let me go. My guess is, he realized what I’d been trying to do, and he figured calming down might be better than running after me.

Her scent was clear enough, at first, that I had no trouble following her. The salt of tears and the tang of shame; six months earlier, I’d have delighted in that scent. Not anymore. Then it started raining, and things got a bit more complicated. It took me an hour or so to finally find her, somewhere near the lake. She was sitting on the ground, arms around her raised knees and face buried against them. She was soaked to the bone and shaking. If Angelus had found her there, rather than me, she’d have had no chance. I doubt her sobbing would have stopped him. It gave me pause, though, and I tried to figure out what to say. I wanted to tell her that she was being stupid, that I had warned her I’d say nasty things and it had all been for Angelus’ benefit, that she had to get a grip and maybe it wasn’t too late to find him again and kill him.

Instead, I found myself kneeling behind her and closing my arms around her trembling body. And I heard myself apologize to her, and promise I hadn’t meant a word of it, repeating the same words in the crook of her neck until they lost all meaning.

It took her a long time, but eventually, her tears subsided, and she finally raised her head to speak.

“I hate you,” she murmured, and she wasn’t the only one hurting anymore.

***

He’d warned me, but I hadn’t understood. I hadn’t imagined he’d say _those_ things. I couldn’t have imagined it.

You’d think by now, it would have been obvious. 

I listened to him tell Angelus how all I had needed was some lessons, and it all came back to me in a rush of pain and shame. Waking up alone after my one night with Angel. The ugly words Angelus had thrown at me when I’d seen him next. Parker using me for the sake of having fun. Spike guessing about that, when he had come to me with the ring, and reminding me of what Angelus had said. And now this…

I’m the Slayer. Point me at a demon and I’ll kill. Throw physical blows at me and I’ll return them with interest. Attack with an army, and I’ll just be more motivated. 

But I’m also an eighteen-year-old girl. I should know better by now, but I still dream of prince charming. I still hope – need – crave – to find someone who’ll love me as much as I love him. Someone who won’t turn into a monster in the morning. I had to be really desperate to even think for a second Spike, of all people, could be that. He already was a monster. There was no reason for me to believe he’d change.

The Slayer should have ignored those words like the cutting weapons they were. The girl let them through until my soul and heart were in tatters. Spike looked at me, then, and it was too much. I’d looked in those eyes and thought I could see…something that definitely wasn’t there. I ran away.

We’d come on Angelus near the university campus – and I still don’t want to know what he had been doing there. I started running. I didn’t stop when it started raining. I didn’t stop when a car almost ran me over. I didn’t stop when I fell down and scraped my knees and hands. I only stopped when the dark, rolling mass of the lake was all that was left in front of me.

I was crying so hard, I could barely breathe. I sat down on the ground and… I don’t know. Part of me hoped that the Hellmouth would open and swallow me. Angelus wouldn’t be my responsibility anymore, then. And I wouldn’t need to see Spike ever again. 

It wasn’t that easy. Of course not.

I didn’t realize he was there until his arms closed around me and pulled me back to rest against his chest. I couldn’t manage to push him away, however much I wished I had. I was frozen to the bone, and even if he was as soaked as I was, being in his arms made me feel warmer. That was the last thing I wanted to feel at that moment.

He lowered his face to my neck and I thought he’d bite me, kill me. I didn’t care. Anything for it to end. Everything I touched, I broke beyond repair. I was supposed to keep the world safe, and instead people kept dying because of me, because I was too naïve, because I trusted the worst possible people, because—

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t bite me.

“I didn’t mean it, not a word of it.”

He didn’t kill me.

“I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry, luv.”

All he did was repeat those words, over and over, until I couldn’t block them out anymore, until I wanted to believe he was telling the truth. I had learned my lesson, though. There’s only so many times I’ll make the same mistake before it finally sinks in. 

We’d been traveling together for so long, I’d taken companionship and physical attraction for something else. It was more than time to stop being stupid. I was there, with him, day and night, for one simple reason. Angelus. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else could matter, from now on. Starting with him.

I slowly got a grip and forced myself to stop crying. I was a fighter, not a child, I couldn’t afford tears anymore. I raised my head and took a deep breath. I couldn’t look at him, not yet, but I could speak.

“I hate you.” 

I don’t know who I was trying to convince most, him or myself.

He stood, and forced me to my feet as he did. 

“I know,” he said, no feelings whatsoever in his voice. “Same here. Are we trying to find him again tonight or you want to go back to the motel?”

I stepped out of his arms and closed my fists before turning toward him, never looking higher than the collar of his coat.

“Let’s find him. Can you track him down in the rain?”

He shrugged. “I can try.”

We walked around the deserted streets of downtown Cleveland until morning, side by side, never touching. We didn’t find Angelus again, and we didn’t say another word.

***

Two dozen times, during the night, I thought of giving her my coat. Not only had she gone out with a small top that was anything but seasonable, she’d also sat in the rain for a while. She was shaking, but I’m not sure she realized she was frozen to the bone. What I was sure of was that she’d shoot me down if I offered help in any way. So I didn’t. But I wasn’t happy about it.

When we got back to the car to find a motel just outside of town, I cranked the heat as far as it would go. She didn’t say anything, but at least she wasn’t shaking so hard when we got there.

“Two rooms,” were her first words since we’d decided to keep hunting Angelus. 

I didn’t argue or try to pretend I didn’t have enough money, even if I thought it was a bad idea. We were on Angelus’ territory, and sticking together would have been safer. I wasn’t in the mood for a fight, though. I got the two rooms, gave her one key, and watched her walk away.

Part of me was certain she’d be gone by the time we had to go back to the hunt, and between that and the nagging fear that Angelus would track us down, I spent the morning sitting by my room’s window. The clouds cover prevented me from burning to a crisp as I kept watch on the car, the entire parking lot and her door. I didn’t get a wink of sleep. By three or four in the afternoon, I was out of fags, hungry as hell and bored out of my mind. It was raining again. I decided to risk it.

I didn’t want her to think I had just left, so I wrote a note just saying I’d be back and slipped it beneath her door. I stood there for a minute, close to the door, listening. I could hear her heartbeat, nothing more. I’d been a little afraid I’d hear her sobbing.

Cigarettes were easy to find. Then I started driving around, looking for a likely place where to buy blood. I saw signs for some kind of market. Tried that. Got lucky. A few subtle questions in the indoor part of it and I found a butcher who kept jars of animal blood behind his stand. He didn’t quite look me in the eye when he handed them to me; I’m pretty sure he knew what I am. Gotta love being on a Hellmouth.

Since I was already there, I figured I might as well get food for the Slayer. I went around the stands, and since I didn’t really know what she liked other than hamburgers and fries, I got her a bit of this and that. Fresh bread and a couple croissants. Cheese. Pasta salad. Imported chocolate. Soda and a water bottle. Walking back to the car through the outdoor part of the market, I grabbed small tomatoes and strawberries. And because I had spent all my money, I picked a couple pockets before leaving.

It was past five when I got back to the motel, and still raining. I thought it was late enough that she’d be up, so I went to knock on her door. Maybe I was also checking if she was still there – and if she was OK. I had to knock for a while before she finally opened. I knew at once that something was up. She had bundled herself in the scratchy coverlet that came standard with the room and she looked grayer than it was.

“Wha’ d’ya want now?” she mumbled, slurring her words and sniffling a little.

“I got you food.” 

I raised the bags in my left hand to show her, expecting her to take them or show some kind of satisfaction. Instead, she stared at me, then at the bags, as though the concept of food was foreign to her. 

“Are you OK?” I asked, half concerned and half annoyed.

“’M fine.”

That would have been more convincing if beads of sweat hadn’t been sliding down her temples while she only clung harder to her blanket. I pushed my way into the room. The fact that she didn’t even try to resist was only one more proof that something was wrong. I put the food on the small table by the door and raised a hand to her forehead. She took a step back, but she wasn’t quick enough.

“You’re burning,” I pointed out.

“’M not. ‘M cold.”

I didn’t know until that moment that slayers could get sick, but she definitely was. Years of watching medical shows on telly for the gore factor had taught me one thing – too much heat wasn’t good. I tugged at her blanket and pulled it free despite her protests. She was wearing pajamas, a sweatshirt and socks beneath it. Any other time, the prospect of undressing would have made my day. After what had happened the previous night, I can’t say I was looking forward to it.

I left her there and went to her bathroom to run a cool bath. She followed me, wobbling, wrapped in her blanket again, and frowned when I shrugged out of my duster.

“Why don’t you go to your own room to take a bath?”

“It’s not for me.”

She looked at me, puzzled. “For who then?”

“You.” I stole her blanket as I had earlier, and gestured at her. “Come on. You’ve got a fever and you need to cool down. Drop the clothes.”

“I don’t have—” She sniffled. “—a fever. And you’re just saying that to get me naked again.” She shook a finger at me. It was almost cute. “You’re a bad man.”

“Not a man,” I replied, grabbing her arm and pulling her sweatshirt off faster than she could realize what I was doing. “And no, I’m not doing this to get you naked.”

The pajama top came off as easily as the sweatshirt. Half naked, she just stood there, arms covering her breasts and looking, of all things, ready to cry.

“Was I that bad?” she mumbled. “You don’t even want me anymore.”

It took a second before what she was rambling about started to make sense. When it did, I was taken by the sudden urge to break something.

“Didn’t say I don’t want you,” I pointed out. “Now finish undressing and get into that bath.”

I thought she’d argue about it, but she asked me to close my eyes and seconds after I did, I heard her step into the tub.

“It’s too cold,” she complained.

“No. You’re too hot.”

I opened my eyes again just in time to see her sit down, knees drawn in front of her, the same way I had found her by the lake.

“And for the record,” I said, sitting down on the edge of the tub, “you weren’t bad by any stretch of the imagination.”

She turned her head toward the wall and rested her cheek on her knee. “You said I was. And so did he.”

Reaching down into the tub, I cupped water in my hand and sloshed it over her shoulder. She shivered.

“I also said I didn’t mean it. Do you remember that part?”

She shrugged, still refusing to look at me.

“As for him…” The words refused to come, at first, but I forced them out regardless. I doubted she’d remember any of this when the fever came down, and if she did I could still blame it on hallucinations. “He said the same thing about me, first time he fucked me. I’ve got a feeling he says that about any virgin he takes to explain his own shortcomings.”

That brought her eyes back to me, all wide and incredulous.

“You should lie down,” I said, taking advantage of her surprise. “Dunk your head a bit, too.”

She just kept staring as though she hadn’t heard me – or at least, not that last part.

“You and Angel?” she mumbled.

“No, luv. Me and Angelus. Long ago.” I put a hand on her shoulder and pushed back gently. “Down, now.”

She closed her eyes and dipped her head back, staying there for a couple seconds. Her hair floated around her like a halo, and it was all I could do not to reach down and touch her face. I did put a hand on her forehead when she came back up. The fever was coming down.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said as she wiped the water off her face. “If you two are gay why did you sleep with me? Or pretend to love me?”

She just looked at me as though she hadn’t said anything extraordinary, clearly expecting an answer. For a few seconds I watched her, wondering exactly how sick she was – and how much she’d remember.

“When did I pretend I loved you?”

She shrugged and rested her head on her knee again. When she spoke, her voice was almost too low for me to catch. “Thought you made love to me.”

I knew at once what she was talking about; our second time, slow and sweet. What I didn’t know was how to answer her. While I remained speechless, she started shivering. Her skin was covered in goose bumps.

“Dunk your head again and we’ll get you out of here.”

She leaned back again and then took my hand to stand and step out of the tub. She stayed there, shaking, while I found the towels and rubbed her dry. 

“In bed, now.”

I preceded her out and opened the bed, then covered her with the sheet and blanket once she had lain down. Another touch to her forehead left me satisfied about her fever.

“You know, you’re pretty high maintenance for a Slayer,” I said as I walked back to the food I had bought. There was a mini fridge in a corner of the room, and I managed to cram inside what blood I hadn’t drunk on the way back along with her pasta and cheese. “First your leg, then your meltdown, now this…”

I walked back to the bed with the water bottle. She was asleep. I brushed wet strands off her face, wishing I had done a better job of drying her hair. I sat on the edge of her bed, for a little while, and watched her sleep. And wondered. 

Had she truly believed I was in love with her?

And if she had… why hadn’t she staked me yet?

***

When I woke up, the room was dark. Night had fallen, and I couldn’t imagine how I had slept that long or why Spike hadn’t come to get me. Then I realized I was naked beneath the covers – and that there was someone next to me, sitting with his back to the headboard. I practically jumped out of bed, clutching the sheet to me. Spike woke up at once and yawned.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I shrieked. “What did you do to me?”

Even as I asked, though, my mind cleared up and I remembered.

“You were sick,” he said, reaching to the nightstand to turn on the lamp. “I played nurse. Feeling better?”

The memories were jumbled, out of order, and some of them were strange – had I asked Spike if he was gay? – but the overwhelming impression they gave me was that Spike was telling the truth. Not the whole truth, but the truth nonetheless.

“I…do feel better.”

I frowned, remembering more. What he had said. What I had said. Silences and gentleness. All of it so unlike Spike that it left me confused and disoriented. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know whether to acknowledge what had happened or just move on.

It was a loud grumbling that broke the tension of the moment, and I was embarrassed to realize it was caused by my belly. 

Spike chuckled. “Hungry? I got you food.”

He got off the bed and walked over to the side of the room. He had his back to me, now, and I hurriedly pulled out sweat pants and a t-shirt from my travel bag. By the time he came back and spread out food on the bed, I was decent. And shocked.

“That’s…real food,” I said, looking at the bounty in front of me. 

I climbed back onto the bed, kneeling, and tried to decide what to reach for first.

“As opposed to the unreal kind?” Spike said. 

He picked up a white paper bag and pulled a croissant from it. I salivated just looking at it and my stomach grumbled again when he bit into it.

“As opposed to fast food.”

Without thinking any more, I grabbed the bag he had just dropped on the bed again and took the second croissant out. I think I might have moaned at how good it was.

“I’ll just… eat a bit,” I said in between bites. “And then we can go.”

He didn’t reply until I had started eating the pasta salad – the oh-my-gosh-so-good pasta salad.

“You stay here and rest. I’ll do some recon. We can figure out how to play it after that.”

I started protesting, but he didn’t listen. Before I knew what he was doing, he had his coat on and he was walking out of the room. I slipped off the bed and hurried to the door, but something on the floor distracted me. I picked up the piece of paper, dreading to find another of Angelus’ notes. Instead, I quickly realized it was from Spike. I’d never seen his handwriting. It was a bit untidy and slanted, very different from Angelus perfect penmanship.

_I went to get food. I’ll be back before night. Stay safe._

And then, beneath his signature, scrawled as though in an after thought… _I’m sorry._

Something tightened inside me, and it wasn’t the hunger talking anymore. I read the note again, and the knot of tension at the back of my neck loosened. 

I understood, then, why he had told me about Angelus and him. He’d been trying to show me he knew what those words had felt like because he had been in my place. A little, rebellious voice inside me protested that it made things worse because he had known just how much he would hurt me. For the first time, though, I let myself realize that he had tried to warn me. I just hadn’t understood.

Slow steps took me back to the bed. I finished the pasta, trying not to think of anything beyond food, and looked for what to have next. That was when I decided it was probably a good thing Spike had left, or I might have professed my love for him, right then and there.

He had bought me chocolate.

***

Until the day I turn to dust, I’ll keep claiming I had nothing planned when I went out that night. I know she doesn’t believe me, but it’s the truth.

OK, so maybe I had given it some thought before. I can’t say I’ve ever been the most patient of vampires, and this run over the country was getting on my nerves. I just didn’t want to give up on killing Angelus. I didn’t want him to think I had given up. His interest in the Slayer, though, changed matters a bit. 

So far, it had seemed that if we didn’t go after him, he would only keep on his little killing spree. Not that I cared much, but I guess the Slayer did. Now, though, I had a hunch that he might not let us give up the chase. If we didn’t go to him, he’d come to us – well, to her, but at that point it was pretty clear to me that I wouldn’t be going anywhere without her anytime soon.

Downtown Cleveland by night. Not exactly the most lively scene I’d ever seen, which was just fine for my purpose. Easier to find someone when he doesn’t have a crowd to hide in. I took some altitude, hoping to see him before he’d see me. I guess he had the same idea. Not a surprise; he’d taught that trick to me.

“Lost your girlfriend, Spikey? Or maybe she tired of you?”

I looked down at him. His building was lower than the one I’d chosen. I could have jumped down to his roof, but he’d have needed wings to get to me.

“Nah, I tired _her_ ,” I shot back. “We had a nice round of fucking or ten. She’s an insatiable little thing.”

With the wind blowing upward, I got a nice whiff of his scent. Oh, yes. He reeked of jealousy and anger. He was choking on it. Strangely enough, though, there wasn’t even a hint of blood on him. That had been the one constant, these past weeks. Every time I’d caught his trail or been near him, blood had been thick and heavy in his scent. That night, I couldn’t smell it on him. Had he been too distracted to think of killing?

That’s when it hit me. New plan.

He was rambling about what he’d do to me and to her when he was tired of playing. Perfect opening.

“’M afraid I beat you to the finish line. This little scavenger hunt of yours is getting old. I’ve got better things to do with my nights – like spending them inside her.”

The wind carried his growl to me and I grinned. It couldn’t have worked better.

“She’ll never stop hunting me!” he challenged. “And you…you’re too whipped to let her go.” He laughed; he sounded like a crow. “You’re always too whipped, Spike. All we’ve got to do is be half nice to you and there you go, falling head over heels. You’re pathetic.”

It might not have hurt so much if he hadn’t been so right.

“Maybe I am. But I’m the one sleeping in her bed. And I’m the one taking her home. That’s our goodbye, pillock. Have fun wrecking the world. Be sure to send us a postcard every now and then.”

The look on his face when he realized I wasn’t joking was utterly priceless. He threw some insults at me, threatened both my life and hers, but it was over as far as I was concerned. I left him on his roof and hurried back to the car, then back to the motel, making sure he wasn’t following me. If he’d listened – and it was Angelus, he had listened to every word – I’d given him a clue to where we were headed. It was nice, for a change, to be giving out clues rather than finding them. I felt like I was back in charge of what was happening to me, and that feeling has got to be the best thing on this earth.

Followed, very closely, by the embarrassed gratitude of a woman with just a bit of chocolate staining the corner of her mouth. I couldn’t help myself; I wiped the chocolate with my thumb, and sucked on it. It made her blush.

“Did you find anything?” she asked, turning away from me.

“Yeah. Found him, all right. Pack your things and join me in the car, we’re out of here.”

Minutes later, we hit the road.

“Where is he leading us, this time?”

I shrugged on my seat and glanced at her. For the first time, it occurred to me that I hadn’t talked to her about my plan. She might not be too happy with it, I could guess that much. Maybe it would be better if I blurred the cards a little.

“We’re going west. Back to California.”

She sighed and leaned against the passenger door. After a while, she muttered under her breath: “I’m so tired of him jerking us around.”

I’d tell her the next night, I decided. It’d be too late by then to go back, and it’d give her enough time to get on board with the new plan. Or at least, that was what I hoped.

***

I first got suspicious when he got us two rooms, that morning, without waiting for me to ask for them. My second clue was that the next night, when we got on the road again, and he looked anywhere but at me.

For a while, I tried to figure it out. What could have happened, what could he have done that made him uncomfortable around me? Was it Angelus? Spike had been rather vague about what had happened when he’d gone out alone in Cleveland. What if… There were too many what if’s.

“What is it?” I asked when my mind had reached truly disturbing possibilities.

“What’s what?”

“You. Acting all funny.”

“I don’t—”

He looked at me, just for a second, before setting his eyes on the road again. “We’re not going after him. He’s coming after us.”

I heard his words, loud and clear, but they made no sense. “We’re not… He’s coming…”

“As long as we run after him, he’s leading the game and he has the advantage. We’ll take him on the ground we choose and—”

“Are you insane?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying. “He won’t come to us! He’ll just go on killing and—”

“He’ll come.”

There was such certainty in his voice that I started wondering what he knew that I didn’t—and if, maybe, he was right. “Why would he?”

A few seconds passed before he answered. “Because of you,” he said at last. “He has plans for you. Something more than leading your by the nose around the country. He’s not going to let you get away that easily.” He snorted. “And especially not with me.”

I almost started asking what plans exactly before deciding that I probably was better off not knowing. As to whether Spike was right…well, Angelus had had a couple of opportunities to kill me. If that had been all he wanted, he could have gotten rid of me by then.

I thought about it for a while. If Angelus truly came for us, it might distract him from his killing games. If he didn’t, more people would die. If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have taken that chance. However, it was too late to go back, now. Wasn’t it?

“You should have told me.”

“I just did.”

“You should have told me before.”

“I know.”

That was the end of that. Judging by the confused looks Spike threw me for a little while, he had expected more of a fight.

Honestly, I was as surprised as he was.

Out of the blue, something Willow had once told me popped into my mind. Love makes you do the wacky. Did it ever.

I had to turn my face toward the passenger side window so Spike wouldn’t notice the tears rising to my eyes. Along with the words, her face had come to the front of my mind. Her smile. I could just imagine how wide her eyes would have been, if I had told her I had fallen for another vamp. She’d have told me what a bad idea it was, and then she’d have supported me. I thought she’d have. I’d never know, now.

I missed her. I missed Giles. And my mom and Xander. I missed the semblance of normal life I had once had. Even when it was over, even when Angelus was dust, nothing would ever be the same.

“We’re going back to Sunnydale, aren’t we?” I asked when I had gotten myself under control.

“How did you know?”

“That’s where it started. It’s where it has to end.”

That morning, when we stopped for the day, I told Spike to get just one room.

***

I thought she’d fight me over my decision. I thought she’d throw a tantrum and demand that I stop the car. I thought I’d need to convince her, and I had my arguments ready, all lined up in a pretty row.

Instead, all she needed were a few words, and then she seemed placated. Strange as hell, but not as much as the smell of salt moments later. She had turned her face to the window and I couldn’t see her tears, but I knew. I didn’t have the beginning of a clue to why she was crying, however, so I kept my mouth shut. The last thing I needed was to make it worse.

The night only got weirder after that. When I found a motel, by morning, she asked me to get just one room. I figured out why easily enough when we got in the room. She locked the door behind us, dropped her bag to the floor and planted herself in front of me. There goes the argument, I thought, certain she would let me know, now, just how pissed off she was that I’d made plans without consulting her. I was so very wrong.

Raising herself on her toes, she kissed me. An out of the blue, no warning or hint, lips then tongue, not particularly tender but hot as hell kiss. A few seconds had my mind blank out completely – I’m not proud of it, but what can I say. She’d claimed loud enough that what had happened between us had been an accident and wouldn’t happen again. She’d even said she hated me.

When she pulled away, I was too confused to hold her back. She looked at me for a little while as though I’d been a puzzle she was trying to decipher, and then turned away.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she announced. “If you took one with me, you wouldn’t have to complain I used all the hot water.”

She was already in there when it occurred to me to undress. Did I mention yet just how confused I was?

I stepped inside the tub behind her, and I could see her shiver. She didn’t look back at me. Her body seemed so tense that I couldn’t help wondering if she knew what she was doing – and if she wanted it. There was only one way to find out. I got closer to her and rested my hands on her shoulders. When she didn’t protest, I moved even closer, until my arms were wrapped around her, my chest was pressed to her back and my cock was snug against her ass. Her skin felt hotter than the water. I almost expected her to bolt; she just pressed back against me. She was holding a bar of soap and I practically jumped when she ran it against my arm. I barely felt the soap itself, but her fingers were trails of fire on my skin. 

Needing to know just how far she was ready to take this, I rubbed my cock again the crack of her ass and nuzzled her neck. She froze for a second and then moved, turning around to face me. Her eyes never came higher than my neck as she proceeded to run the soap over my chest. I decided to just let her do as she pleased, curious to see what she’d do next. I got my answer when her slippery hand wrapped around my cock. She rested her head against my chest and looked down as she proceeded to jerk me off. She drove me crazy for a while, going fast then slow, holding me loosely then tighter, and then I got it; she was experimenting. I can’t say I remember anyone ever taking the time to figure out what I liked. It was…nice.

Hell, who am I kidding? It was better than nice. It was hot. I’m not sure if it was the feel of her hot little Slayer hand or the idea that she was trying to please me that did the trick. A bit of both, I guess. But in just moments, she had me gasping and bucking into her hand.

“If you don’t stop,” I warned her, “it’s going to end a lot faster than I’d like.”

She didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. If anything, she seemed to try a little harder. She looked up at me; her face was flushed, her eyes wide and dark with want. 

“Let it end,” she murmured. “And then we can start again.”

Who was I to resist such a lovely offer?

When the ringing in my ears had faded and I’d stopped shaking against her, I found her mouth just centimeters from mine, waiting for me, it seemed. 

I kissed her, and her lips were as fresh as water pulled from a deep well on the hottest day of summer. 

I kissed her, and the touch of her tongue on mine was as soft as the caress of wild flowers in a meadow on the late days of spring. 

I kissed her, and her moan was a song, wordless, tuneless, too brief and too quiet, but the most beautiful song I had ever heard just the same. 

I kissed her, and when she kissed me back I could have written a hundred poems about her. Instead, I fell to my knees in front of her, and worshiped her with my mouth rather than words. A hundred more poems presented themselves when her fingers threaded through my hair, pulling me as close as I could be – and still not close enough. She raised one leg, resting her foot on the edge of the tub and supporting herself with a hand against the tile wall. 

Clever little Slayer, opening herself to me, my lips, tongue and fingers. Delicious little Slayer, her cunt so sweet for me already when I had barely touched her. So hot when I ran my tongue along her slit and pushed it in. So responsive when I sucked on her clit and she bucked her hips forward. So needy when I caught that bundle of nerves between my teeth and she hissed a long, “Yesss”. So warm and tender, afterwards, when her still trembling body slinked down until she was draped over my lap, and her lips were back against mine, fresh and soft and inspiring all over again.

***

Spike’s face was beautiful when he came.

I watched him, that morning. The entire time, I watched him.

Our first time, I’d been too lost to pleasure to really look at him. The second time, he’d been behind me. This time, I wanted to watch him. I wanted to see every flutter of pleasure in his eyes, every silent moan rising to his lips. I needed to watch him, because if only for a few hours and even if it was just an illusion, I needed to feel warm. I needed to feel loved.

It’d been weeks. It felt like forever. Some days, I didn’t know anymore why I was fighting. Fight, give up, live, die, it was all the same. Part of me, though, the part that remembered Willow’s smile and Giles’ approval, didn’t want it to be the same. They’d have wanted me to fight, win, and live. 

And so, for them, in memory of them, and Oz, and everybody else Angelus had killed because I had helped him come back, I wanted my life back. I wanted to wake up, some time soon, and not get in a car to drive to the next town. I didn’t know what I’d do, I couldn’t even imagine it, and that was the problem, right there. I’d never be able to beat Angelus if I couldn’t remember exactly what I was fighting for. It was kind of a vicious circle. The only way to break it, as far as I could figure, was Spike.

I was scared, when I invited him to share my shower, that he wouldn’t. I was even more scared he would ruin it all by saying or doing something stupid that would shatter the illusion. He didn’t. He let me touch him, let me get to know his body and his pleasure, let me see, clear as written words on his face and in his voice, everything I made him feel. Far from breaking the illusion, it reinforced it, as did everything else he did or said for the next few hours. He’d never touched me quite like that, as though I were precious, as though I’d break if he held me too tight or disappear if he didn’t. He’d called me beautiful before, but I hadn’t believed him. Now I did. I wanted to. I wanted to believe that my name on his lips meant something. I needed to trust that everything that had happened in the past days, every way he had taken care of me, had been more than a game, more than a ploy to get me back in his bed. 

I did believe it, believe what he wasn’t saying, that time and every other time on our way back to Sunnydale. I didn’t care if I was fooling myself. It took us three more nights of driving in near silence; three more days of sleeping wrapped around each other. When we got there, I was – I don’t want to say happy, not when I still grieved my friends, but as happy as I could possibly be given the circumstances. More than that, though, I was ready. Ready to take on Angelus, but also ready to see Spike go when it was over.

Spike’s face was beautiful when he came. I’d made sure I’d remember it long after we had said goodbye.

***

We arrived in Sunnydale late in the evening. I wanted us to stay at a motel, but she insisted to go to her home.

Four days earlier, I might have argued this was a bad idea; for all we knew, Angelus was already in town, seeing how he wasn’t restricted to traveling by night only as we were. 

But these four days had changed a lot. They had changed everything.

I’d seen something in her eyes, those past four days, every time she had reached for me, every time I had reached for her. I can’t say I’d seen that something directed at me before, but I thought I knew what it was. I couldn’t not respond to it. 

So I didn’t argue, and I did what she wanted. I drove her home. She was so excited, she was already in front of the door before she realized I was still in the car. I wasn’t sure she wanted me to tag along. She turned back to me, came back to the car, frowning lightly. 

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I thought I’d go on a little hunt, see if I can sniff him around.”

“Not by yourself, you’re not. Come in for a while, and we’ll go together.”

She had invited me in her home. There were hardly any better ways to invite me in her life.

We got in together. We hadn’t taken three steps inside before her mother appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Buffy? Oh my God you’re home!”

They both looked as shocked – as happy – to see each other. I watched as they embraced, clinging to each other as though they’d thought they’d never see each other again, which they probably had. I watched them. And I envied them. There was no place in the world where I could return and expect to be welcomed like that.

“Where have you been?” her mother asked when they separated. “Is he… Is it over?”

“Not yet. Why did you come back?”

They sat on the steps together. I’m not even sure Joyce had noticed me.

“We went to San Francisco, and then these killings happened… Xander was sure it was Angelus. We talked about it, and he and Anya thought we ought to get out of San Francisco. So we came back.”

“You shouldn’t have. This isn’t safe. You have to—”

“I have to live my life, Buffy,” Joyce cut in gently. “I can’t just be running away forever. How is that living?”

She looked like she would argue for a minute, and then she glanced at me, just for a second, and whatever she had been going to say must have changed.

“It’ll be over soon but you’ll have to be really careful until then.”

What had she seen in me that made her change her mind, I wondered. I doubted she’d have told me if I had asked.

“And Spike is going to stay with us until it’s over.”

Joyce seemed as startled by than pronouncement as I felt. She looked at me, and I could see all the questions she had. All her worry, too. Eyes sharp as a hawk protecting its young.

“I’ll get out of these clothes,” Buffy announced, standing. “I’ve been dreaming of changing clothes for weeks.”

In a blink, she was gone, leaving me with the hawk. Joyce smiled at me, and I felt the urge to take a step back – hell, to get as far away from her as I could before she found an axe.

“Care for some hot chocolate?” she offered, much too sweetly, convincing me that it was a trap. But would I fall in it if I accepted or if I refused?

“Sure,” I said warily.

She led the way to the kitchen and I followed after a glance toward the second floor. Buffy was taking an awful lot of time to change.

“You’ve been with her all this time?” she asked as she poured water in the kettle. “Hunting Angel together?”

I watched the tension in her back, matching that high-strung thread in her voice. She knew. I had no clue how, but I’d have bet my life on it – if she didn’t dust me first, that was. The safest route seemed to answer without volunteering more information, and hope Buffy would be done soon.

“Yes.”

She turned to face me. Even with an axe in hand, she had never seemed so fierce. “So, will she have to stake you too when she’s done with Angel?”

***

Being back in my home, in my room, with my mom just downstairs was surreal. Coming back down to hear to my mom and Spike talk, even more so.

“I don’t plan to do anything that’ll get me staked.”

I stayed on the last step of the staircase and listened. I couldn’t see either of them in the kitchen, but I could hear just fine.

“What does that mean exactly? You’re not…you’re not killing anymore? Like Angel bef—”

“I don’t have a soul to lose.”

“So you’re killing?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“ _What_ are you saying, Spike?”

“That I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t force her to stake me. I’d leave before letting that happen.”

My knees were folding in under me and I sat down on the steps, my hand tight over the banister. My mind was completely blank.

“And how do I know you will indeed leave?” I don’t think I had ever heard my mother sound so…dangerous. “How do I know setting fire to you right here, right now wouldn’t be the best thing for Buffy?”

Spike chuckled. “Because she needs me.”

There was a lot left unsaid in the silence that followed – too much, apparently, because Spike felt it necessary to explain: “She needs me to kill him.”

“Is that all she needs you for?”

I had heard enough. I pulled myself upright, took two steps back up and then down again, making sure they heard me this time. I stopped just beyond the kitchen’s entrance for a moment to look at them. She was watching him over the rim of her mug. I had seen that look before, at the gallery. That was the way she looked at pieces of artwork she didn’t understand when she tried to decide whether to show them or put them in storage. I couldn’t begin to imagine what that look meant when it was directed at a person.

Spike turned his face toward me right away. I couldn’t help wondering how long he had known I was there.

“Ready?” I said, unable to hold his gaze.

He drained his mug before answering. “Ready. Let’s go.”

We went out together. I could feel my mother’s eyes on us until we had turned the street corner. We didn’t talk until we reached downtown Sunnydale, but the entire time I could hear their conversation running through my mind again – I could hear him say he’d leave. I had known he would, I was even counting on it, but it was completely different to hear him confirm it.

It was different, and it hurt much more than it had any right to.

***

Going with her through the streets of Sunnydale was the strangest thing. It was a bit like being back to all those weeks earlier, when we’d first gone out looking for Angelus; silent, walking side by side, both of us with too many things in mind. At the same time, it was entirely different. Too much had happened, since then. Too much had changed.

 _We_ had changed.

I knew she’d heard me talk to her mother. I’d been waiting for her to come back, there’s no way I could have missed the creaking of that staircase or the sound of her heartbeat. 

What I didn’t know was what she thought of what she had heard.

After the past few days, I’d have thought she’d have told me, straight out, the same way she had invited me in her house that night, or in her bed before that. Instead, almost an hour passed before she said a word.

“Is he in town?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know. But he hasn’t walked around here. Want to hit the bars?”

“If he’s coming, he’ll come for us.”

She had a point. 

“So, how do you want to play it this time?” I asked. I still thought making him mad enough to forget one of us was our best bet, but I wasn’t going down that road again unless she was the one suggesting it.

“We take him together.” Her voice was steady as a rock. “Frontal attack. No dancing around. I’ve taken him before, I can do it. I’m ready.”

I looked at her. Hands in the pockets of her light jacket and head held high, she was the image of steel determination. I didn’t find it in myself to point out the contradiction in what she had just said – if she was truly ready to stake him, if she was sure she could do it, why was she suggesting we work together still? 

When I had gone to her with a truce offer, we’d both been hurt – me, physically, more than I had cared to show her, and she in her mind, with two of the pillars that had supported her for years shattered. I was fine, now, I’d been fine for a while, but I knew all too well that I’d never beaten him before. She had. That was why I still needed her help.

Honestly, I don’t think she needed mine.

She proved it that morning, when we got back to her house at sunrise, and found Angelus waiting for us.

***

When we walked back home that morning and I saw the car with Ohio plates parked in the street in front of my house, I thought my heart would stop.

We’d gone out to look for him, and he, of course, had come looking for us. Hadn’t that been the whole plan? He had come to my house, where I had left my mom alone and without protection. He had come to my house – and I couldn’t remember doing a disinvite spell since the last time Angel had been in.

I froze on the sidewalk, sure that going forward would only mean finding another macabre scene, this one with my mom as the centerpiece. I had been ready to fight him, but if she was dead—

“Buffy. Look.”

My eyes followed Spike’s raised arm and saw. Angelus was walking toward us, coming from the back of the house. With every step, he flicked a lighter open, produced a small flame, and closed the lighter back.

“And there are the two lovebirds.”

I don’t know what was thicker in his voice, the contempt or the rage.

“I was just about to send smoke signals.”

It had been months since I had thought of the smell of smoke near Giles’ place. His words brought that scent back, along with the despair I had felt that night. He had killed my mom and he had been about to burn her house down, like he had done for Giles. 

It was a light that stopped me from simply throwing myself at him. A simple light, turning on behind a second floor window, that saved me. My mom was all right. For whatever reason, Angelus hadn’t gone inside.

Later, I learned that when they had all come back to Sunnydale, Xander and Anya had figured out again how to disinvite vamps from a house. I don’t want to think of what would have happened if they hadn’t.

Angelus was just a few feet away, now. I had fished out a stake from inside my jacket, and witout even looking I knew that Spike was ready as well. Or at least, I thought I knew, until I heard him exclaim: “Fuck.”

Startled, I threw a look at him. 

“The sun just breached the horizon,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

Angelus laughed. “Poor Willy. That pesky sunrise is going to chase you away, isn’t it?” Still chuckling, he raised his left hand and wiggled his fingers. The green stone on the Amara ring gleamed. “A pity you don’t have a ring like mine.”

The display made Spike act…well, like himself, really. Rashly. Without thinking. Without regard for the plan or his own safety. He ran to Angelus, a stake in hand and his face changed to that of the demon he was. They had traded a few blows, punches and kicks both, before I shook myself into motion and joined in the dance.

I was so mad at Spike for taking such risks, I could have killed him.

Oh, and I did intend to finally stake Angelus too.

***

For a few moments, it went exactly as it was supposed to. We fought, the Slayer and I, for the first time as a team rather than each of us doing our own thing. Seeing how neither of us plays well with others, it was rather amazing that it worked so well, actually.

It didn’t last, though. Of course not. The sun was out, and it didn’t take long before the skin of my hands and face started smoking. It wasn’t quite direct sunlight so I didn’t spontaneously combust – but the warning was all too clear to get the hell away from the yard, where the tree would offer me no protection from the low sun. The warning was clear, but I didn’t want to heed it, not when Angelus was retreating in front of us, not when he was tiring and I could see the end coming, not when we were so close—

“Spike! Get in! Now!”

There was fear in her voice, and it was that fear more than the words themselves that tore me away from the fight. In more than a hundred years, I had never regretted becoming a vamp. The moment I ran to the house and passed the door that would keep me safe while she kept on fighting, I did regret it for the first time.

Joyce was there, dressed in a bathrobe, hair in disarray, arms wrapped around herself. She gave me a look of pure reprobation, and I couldn’t help growling at her. She took a startled step back, making me realize I was still in game face. Switching back to my human features was far beyond anything I could manage.

I couldn’t watch them fight. I couldn’t _not_ watch them fight. With each blow she dealt, I wanted to leap forward and help her. With each hit he landed, I wanted to rush back and protect her. It was torture to be there, just feet away, and not be able to do anything. I would have given anything to be able to help.

I’d have given my life.

And then, there came a moment when _thinking_ I’d have given my life wasn’t enough anymore. _Doing_ it was. 

They had fought all over the yard, and they were now closer to the door, giving me a perfect view when she pinned him down, arms and legs, her smaller frame holding his despite the difference in sizes as incredible as it seemed. She wouldn’t hold him long, though. And then what? More fighting? Would she get another chance as good as this one?

The emerald-like stone gleamed.

I stopped thinking and ran, keeping my eyes on the ring and my mind on Buffy.

The sun, when it started burning me, wasn’t half as warm as her skin had been beneath my fingers.

***

It all happened so fast, I’m not sure anymore what went on exactly. I think I screamed. I know Angelus did, when Spike wrenched the ring off his finger and his skin started smoking. I believe Spike might have screamed too, when his hand caught fire.

I was scared, so very scared for him. It was Angelus beneath me, Angelus I couldn’t hold down anymore, Angelus whom I needed to kill at last, but my mind, in those few moments, was all Spike’s. If he died now…

I couldn’t even think about it. I couldn’t spare him a glance. I had to finish what he had stepped in the sun to allow me to do.

Rolling off Angelus, I pulled a spare stake from my belt. Instinct took over, and as Angelus made a run for it, I followed purposefully. He couldn’t go far. Indeed, he had to stop at the nearest patch of shadows by the side of Spike’s car.

Spike’s car. Would Spike ever drive it again? Was he back in the house and safe or was he dust in the wind already? I wanted to look back. I couldn’t. Not when Angelus was in front of me, huddling against the car, eyes wide and wild on a red and blistered face.

“Don’t,” he croaked. “Just… A soul… you can… Angel…”

I heard his words. I understood them. But I never considered them, not for a minute, not for a second, not for the time of a blink. If I did pause, it was to give a thought to Giles, and Willow, and Oz, and all those people between Sunnydale and Cleveland. I thought of Angel, too. He’d have wanted me to do it, I was sure of it. Better that than more pain, more guilt, more victims to haunt him.

I watched his ashes, when it was done. Already, a soft wind was carrying them away. I found myself imagining the same wind had taken Angel’s soul, and for the first time since all this mess had started, I let myself mourn for the man I had once loved. 

When I turned back toward the house, I had put behind me both Angel and Angelus, and I was ready for Spike again – if only he was still alive.

I started shaking when I saw he was.

He stood in front of the house, his face and hands still red but practically healing in front of my eyes. The ring was shining on his finger.

I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t think of what would happen now that the truce was over. I didn’t think of my mom, standing just by the door. I didn’t think of the Amara ring – I didn’t let myself think about it.

Instead, I shut down my brain and walked to him. He opened his arms to me just a second before I reached him, and I didn’t hesitate before stepping right into his embrace, holding him tight, feeling his arms wrap around me in return.

I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t tell him just how scared I had been to lose him before I had the time to say goodbye. So I wouldn’t tell him, also, that I was in love with him.

“You did it,” he murmured against the top of my head. “It’s over.”

I held him even tighter. I knew it was over, but I didn’t want it to be, not quite yet, not without goodbyes.

“Come in,” I said, feeling oh so very self-conscious – and oh so very desperate. “You can leave tonight.”

He didn’t say anything until I had led him by the hand to my room. My mother had given us both a look as we walked by her, but she hadn’t said a word. It wouldn’t have changed anything if she had. 

The door sounded very loud, when it closed on us. The darkness of the room, with the shades drawn, was almost ominous. Spike’s voice rose behind me, so close, so soft it was a caress on the shell of my left ear.

“You’re not going to let me keep it, are you?”

I could feel the ring on his finger when I tightened my hand over his. I wished he hadn’t raised the subject, not now, but at the same time I knew why he had. No lies or pretenses, for our last night together. Just us.

I looked back at him and tried to smile. “I can’t. You know I can't.”

He gave a small nod and leaned in to press his lips to my cheek. At the same time, I pulled the ring off his finger. I had thought he would try to stop me – I had even almost hoped he would. It’d have made it easier, if he had fought me. I wouldn’t have ached so much at the thought of sending him away.

But Spike had never made anything easy for me, and he didn’t, this time either. He let me take the ring, let me crush it beneath my heel without a word or a raise of his eyebrows. When he took me in his arms again, though, I could feel his anger. I apologized with a kiss.

***

It was on her mouth when I kissed her; sweetness from a fruit ripened under the summer sun, heavy, warm and sugary, with just the barest hint of bitterness.

It was on her tongue when it slid against mine; sensuality and confidence, with no trace left of the hesitation of our first kisses.

It was in her hands when she peeled the clothes off me; gentleness so surprising from hands that, minutes earlier, had staked Angelus without shaking.

It was in her eyes when I undressed her; impatience, tinted with nervousness.

It was on her skin when I caressed her; silk.

It was on her fingertips when she touched me; softness even the most delicate butterfly wing cannot achieve.

It was in her entire body when it stretched beneath mine; strength beyond measure yielding to me.

It was on her lips when she moaned my name; desperation.

It was in the warmth of her core, in the scent of her hair, in the taste of her skin at the crook of her neck, in the needy noises rising from her throat and in the way her body arched to meet mine.

In everything she did, everything she was, she said it. Even when I tried, I couldn’t ignore her. Even if I didn’t want to hear, I had no choice.

That morning, we made love. And with every second that passed, she told me goodbye.

***

We made love, that morning. And with every touch of his hands, mouth or cock, he told me goodbye.

I had known this time would come, but I hadn’t expected it to come so fast. I had wanted to finish Angelus, of course, and put an end to that ordeal, but part of me had been sure, had even hoped, that I’d get a few days with Spike in Sunnydale before it was over. And now, all I had was a few hours.

We spent the day in my bedroom, like we had spent so many days in motel rooms waiting for the sun to go down. The difference was that we wouldn’t be hunting Angelus anymore. We were waiting for sunset, yes, but not with the same impatience. Sunset wouldn’t mean the start of another car trip together; sunset would be the end.

I was famished, but I didn’t listen to my hunger. I knew Spike had to be hungry too. If he didn’t feed – and although the idea to offer did brush against my mind, I didn’t go through with it – it was only fair that I fast as well. I didn’t let myself wonder where he would find blood once he left me, just like I had tried not to think about it in the past weeks. I had seen, a few times, blood bags and containers; I was content enough to imagine he would keep feeding that way.

Curled around him, with his body reflecting my own warmth back at me, it would have been easy to let myself believe it was no more, no less than a normal boyfriend in my arms, and imagine we had the rest of our lives in front of us. I couldn’t do it, though. It would have felt disloyal, somehow, to pretend he was something else than a vampire, someone else than Spike. This was whom I had fallen for, this vampire, this killer – this man – and there was no denying it. 

The only words I pronounced, that day, were to reassure my mother when, twice, she came to knock on the door and ask if everything was all right. To talk to Spike, let him know how much this last day meant, how much I’d miss him, all I had was touch.

So often, in the past weeks, I had wished night would fall faster; this time, each ticking minute on my alarm clock came too fast. At 7:48, his arms tightened around me until I almost couldn’t breathe anymore, and he spoke for the first time that day, his words too quiet for me to hear much emotion in them.

“The sun has set.”

I thought my heart would stop. I had to push the words out to answer. “It’s time, then.”

“Guess so.”

He didn’t move.

“I wanted to say thank you,” I managed to utter, the words muffled against his chest. “For your help. For everything.”

He didn’t reply, but his hold on me tightened yet a little more – and then his arms fell away from me. I never felt as cold as when he pulled away and stood up. I watched him get dressed, all too aware that this was it, these were our last moments together unless he came back for a last fight. I wanted to tell him that I would miss him, that I’d remember these days we had spent together all my life, that I… it was useless to try to deny it to myself anymore. That I loved him. But when he turned back toward me as he finished slipping on his coat, I couldn’t manage to say the words. I had loved a vampire before, and nothing but hurt had come out of that.

“Please don’t come back,” I heard myself say. “I’d have to stake you if you did. I don’t want to, but I’d have to.”

It was too dark for me to see his expression, but I saw his body become very still. In that one second, I was more aware than I had been all day of how vulnerable I was, lying naked and defenseless next to a vampire. I was aware of it, but I wasn’t worried.

“OK,” was all he said, and I wondered if he was agreeing not to come back, or agreeing that we’d be fighting if he returned. I didn’t know which I wanted it to be.

A step took him closer to me. I sat up on the bed, clutching the sheet to my chest. This close, I could see his face better, but I couldn’t identify the too serious look on his features. He brushed the back of his fingers to my cheek and I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, his face was just inches from mine. He closed the distance and pressed his lips to mine in what was to be a soft but bittersweet last kiss. I could feel my eyes filling up with tears and I closed them again before he could see. He must have guessed, though, because he broke the kiss and brushed his lips to my eyelids, one then the other, before leaning in close to whisper in my ear.

My hands closed tighter on the sheet, and remained like this long after he had walked out of my room; out of my life. I wanted to go after him, but I knew I couldn’t. It would never work. Vampire, Slayer, we were meant to fight and kill each other, nothing more. I had learned how foolish it was to believe otherwise the hard way. I couldn’t afford to be foolish anymore. People died when I was. I had to be strong, and let him go. Or at least, that was what I repeated to myself while his last words echoed in my mind, as soft as the tenderest caress he had ever offered me, as strong as the harshest of his thrusts inside me during our wildest fucking. That’s what I keep telling myself even now, months after it all ended. It’s better this way. Better, wiser, safer. As hard as it was, as hard as it still is, it has to have been the right decision.

At least, I have his last words to warm me when I miss him, his last words to summon back and wrap around myself like a soft blanket.

_“Be safe, love.”_

***

After months of driving around seemingly without ever stopping, it’d have been nice to just rest, find a town to call my own and learn to live alone. I’ve never been so good at it. I’ve always had someone; someone to love, to follow, to lead, it doesn’t matter so much as long as I can trust them to be there every morning and every night.

It’d have been nice, and yet that isn’t what I did. I drove away from Sunnydale that evening, with the taste of the Slayer’s lips still on mine, with the heat of her body still warming me. I drove away, and I didn’t stop until the next morning. And same thing the following night. And again and again, until I had reached the east coast while going back and forth through just about every state between California and New York. I stayed in New York a few weeks, anonymous in the gigantic city, and then the urge to run further took me. I found passage on a boat back to merry old England, and from there onto the continent. Europe held my interest a few weeks, then I started wondering how much China had changed.

I wasn’t running away; at least, not from her. I was trying to leave behind me weeks of unnatural actions during which I had helped a Slayer, even taken care of her rather than putting an end to her days as was only right. I was trying, also, to shed the feelings I still had so much trouble accepting. Vampires aren’t supposed to fall for humans, and even less with Slayers. Angel’s experience was the best cautionary tale about the absurdity of it all. 

And yet, regardless of how much distance I put between us, every morning, when I crawled into bed, my treacherous mind took me back to her. And at some point – I guess the Earth just isn’t big enough – I stopped getting away, and started getting closer to her again. There might have been half a world and an ocean between us, still, but simply knowing each step now took me closer filled me with a frightening sense of expectation.

Once I reached New Zealand, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. From the very first night, I had only been coming back toward her. I could keep running, could let more weeks, more months, even years pass by. In the end, I was only pushing back the inevitable. 

I had to go back. If she killed me like she had promised to, at least I’d die without regret. And if she didn’t…

Another boat took me back to California. I tried not to wonder about what would happen once I got there, tried not to prepare my words. It was all up to her, and I doubted anything I said would make a difference – did I say I tried not to prepare what I’d say? I lied. A thousand ways this could end ran through my mind during the trip back to her. A thousand different endings that still course through me, pushing me forward on the last few yards to her door.

Somehow, I haven’t lost that sense I acquired over the weeks we spent together, and I can tell – I know – that she’s inside. I shrug my shoulders hoping not to appear too tense, throw away my cigarette, pass my fingers through my hair and take a deep breath. 

When I raise my hand to knock, my mind plays a trick on me, and for a second, just a second, my skin is blackened as it was, months ago, almost a year, now, when I came to tell her about Angelus and offer her a truce. So much has happened, since that night. So much has changed.

I had given her three words, back then – Angelus is back – and she had broken down in front of him. This time they are much different words that are ready to slip on my tongue. Three scary, wonderful, unimaginable words that make my mind sing louder than ever before. Three words I have waited quite long enough say aloud. Three words that, like my heart, belong to her.

I knock. She opens. And so it starts.

 

_The End_


End file.
